Are You Processing or Procrastinating?

I'm an inbox-zero girl at heart. I know there are a LOT of interpretations of what that really means, but for me it's this: if it's in my inbox, it needs some kind of action.

That means I'm almost never ACTUALLY at zero, but if my inbox is under 10 items I usually feel pretty good.

My goal is to use as little brain power as possible processing/reprocessing unnecessary information. I consider myself a decently smart person…but sometimes at 6pm, I realize I've brained so hard that day that I can't even brain something as simple as "do we have the ingredients to make that for dinner?" or "I just used that up, I need to add it to the shopping list before I forget (cut to 3 seconds later) … what was I in the middle of doing?"

So, with that detailed glimpse into my personal life complete, I have a confession: I left an email newsletter sitting in my inbox for WEEKS.

But why? Why would I waste that precious space? Because it was the inspiration for a blog post I was thinking about writing and I wasn't ready to write.

Creative People Are Masters of Avoidance

One hallmark of creative folks (this isn't limited to us, of course, but we do seem to excel at it) is the ability to PROCRASTINATE. That's because creative work is hard. I've watched writers on my own teams build elaborate rituals just to avoid the blank page -- perfect lighting, the right candle, three cups of coffee they don't finish. Other times the process looks like this: avoid until the last possible moment and then, under extreme (self-inflicted) duress, get sh*t done. I've shipped headlines at 11pm the night before a pitch that I'd been "thinking about" for two weeks, and somehow they were sharper than anything I could've forced out on day one.

I've been guilty of this, sure. But in this case, I wasn't procrastinating (I didn't have a due date for this thing, I just had an idea). Instead, I was processing…passively.

That sounds like such BS, doesn't it? (I can hear myself responding if I were reading or hearing this from any other source, "great spin, you should be in PR! Ha! Passive processing. That's just a fancy way to say you're procrastinating without pissing off your boss!")

But I'd argue it's different. After 40+ years and something like 100,000 ads written, I can tell you: the campaigns that flopped were almost always the ones I forced out under deadline pressure with zero simmer time. The ones that made real money for clients -- the ones that ran during Super Bowls -- those ideas usually sat in the back of my head for days before I ever touched a keyboard.

Let It Simmer (Like Really Good Pasta Sauce)

When I wrote that blog post, it flowed like a fountain of melted butter (is that a thing?!). And THAT'S because I'd let those thoughts simmer on the back burner like a really good homemade pasta sauce. (Now I'm hungry. Dammit, food metaphors! ….that reminds me, I need to add parmesan to the shopping list.)

Have you ever had a great idea on vacation that just wouldn't do you the favor of showing up when you really needed it at the office? That's likely the result of passive processing. Letting your brain work the problem in the background instead of agonizing over it in the moment. It's the same reason a headline that took me three tries in the room comes out right on the fourth try in the shower the next morning -- the brain kept chewing on the actual job the line needed to do even after I walked away from the desk.

Here's the Difference

Procrastinating is different — it's avoidance — which means you're starting at Square One when you finally get to it. Passive processing means you've already been working the problem, you just haven't put pen to paper yet.

I'm going to invite you on a magical internet rabbit hole and let Tim Urban explain (as only he can) what procrastination REALLY looks like:

I'm not here to judge your process. I'm also not here to encourage your Instant Gratification Monkey. But sometimes, letting an idea simmer…giving yourself the gift of passive processing time…makes life a whole lot easier. It's also, frankly, why I've never trusted AI to do the actual creative thinking -- it can research and draft, but it can't let an idea marinate in the back of a mind for three days and come back changed. That part's still on us.

Juuuuust make sure you're processing and not procrastinating.

Now about that shopping list…