Upside to procrastinating
Last-minute parenting strategies buck convention but may have surprising benefits
Schools open soon, and if you haven’t gotten your annual quota of No. 2 pencils, composition books and boxes of tissues yet, you might be feeling sweaty panic creeping in.
You may never miss a work deadline, you may wake up before the alarm even buzzes, you may pay your taxes a day early.
It’s OK: You’re not a procrastinator. You’re a last-minute mom.
The onslaught of arbitrary deadlines in the parenting arena, hyped by a parenting culture of competitive over-planning, can make the best of us feel late or incompetent. “I used to joke that my approach was lazy,” says Christine Koh, co-host of the “Edit Your Life” podcast and co-author of the book “Minimal Parenting,” “which is ridiculous because people who know me know that I am extremely productive and task oriented in my work.”
Koh, a former neuroscientist, tried doing things everyone else seemed to be doing — like booking summer camps for her kids in January.
Then she noticed her husband taking a different approach to planning.
“I used to think his preference to plan stuff super last-minute was him being a commitment-phobe — or perhaps slightly ornery. But it’s actually because he doesn’t like to commit to something in advance, so that he can see how he’s feeling about it closer in.”
Now, Koh says, she chooses to delay when it makes sense for her family. ”
In spite of what other parents might think, says Joe Ferrari, a psychology professor at DePaul University in Chicago and author of “Still Procrastinating?” this doesn’t make Koh a procrastinator. “People don’t understand the word procrastination,” he says. Ferrari, one of the nation’s foremost experts on procrastination, has done research that shows that, world wide, around 20 percent of adults are habitual procrastinators.
“If it’s something that you’re choosing to delay,” says Ferrari, “because my family doesn’t want to live like that, then I don’t have a problem with that.”
Koh agrees wholeheartedly. She points out that there are a few ways to make a last-minute parenting strategy work to your advantage. Collect data. Koh recommends taking a moment to remind yourself of times when doing things far in advance left you or your family feeling dissatisfied, “not to beat yourself up about them, but to remind you that planning stuff super in advance can backfire.” Knowing that tackling these tasks early doesn’t necessarily equate to perfect results and can free you to choose to delay when it makes sense. Embrace flexibility. “Don’t let FOMO (fear of missing out) drive your decisions,” she says. “Remember that there are lots of ways for things to work out.” After nine years of refusing to book summer camps early, she says, she has missed out on programs only once or twice. “I think periodic ‘screwups’ or disappointments are crucial for kids to experience. Kids need to know that your sole job in life is not to plan and manage every aspect of their life and they also need to feel disappointed and then get to the other side.” Make room for the unexpected. Koh calls this “serendipity space” — space in your life “to let awesome, unexpected things happen. We have had so many fun experiences work out because … wait for it ... plenty of other people are not planning in advance too.” Which means choosing to skip the prepackaged school supplies box offered at school in May doesn’t have to be a recipe for stress in August or September.