I tell people I'm not a procrastinator, I actually like doing it at the last minute.
I'm convinced that the happiest and smartest people on earth are those who procrastinate. They know two things that help them deal with life, have a better life when doing it, and keeps them from killing other people.
First. Oh the number of times I've rushed right out like some eager beaver and did something right off only to be told: "We don't need it anymore," "We want something totally different (and in blue)" or they forget about it entirely. The other day I spent five hours focusing the house lights for a TV shoot, only to have someone else make the decision that (shocking) the band really wanted the video to be about them, and they were not interested in shooting anything other than some stock images in the house. Never turned a single one of those lights on the whole time. The generator we had to bring in, hook up, run 300 feet of very heavy feeder cable - never used. We had to turn it off, and then coil up 300 feet of very heavy feeder cable. Great.
Now I try and be mature, and casual, and just think that I'm making money, my crew is making money, it could be worse, and we just laugh it off. We've done it enough that it just does not phase us. However, we've done it enough to make sure that such amusing incidents are kept to a minimum. Hence, procrastination. Had we delayed putting the Genny set-up together for a few more hours, we might well have avoided doing the entire pointless task, and spent that time drinking coffee and getting paid. A better option than dragging feeder cable.
Second. And this is so key. There is this period between the end of a task, and its use where a near endless amount of people are willing to stream past you and tell you in so many words that it is: "Wrong" "They could have done it better" "They would have done it different" - or even worse, suggest that you now take it apart and re-do it their way. That's where the killing other people comes in. So, you need to keep this time frame, this window of opportunity for the march of the morons to a dead absolute minimum. Many years ago now I traveled with a road box that had this written on its side: We've been here since 7am, and its now a half an hour till show time and what would your whinny assed opinion be? That pretty much sums it up. So, here too, procrastination comes to the rescue, by making sure that nothing is ready until it need to be used (after which its a moot point) you cut that deadly interval down to seconds.
As it turns out, most things were not all that important in the first place.
Chill.
