"Structured Procrastination" by John Perry

In some ways, I understand John Perry's theory of structured procrastination, but I feel as if he's maybe trying a little too hard to look at procrastination in a positive light. By no means do I think that procrastination is a bad thing (because I do it all the time-look at the time of these posts), but it seems like he's trying to apply this logic to an area where I don't think it really applies. Procrastination affects everyone at some point--from the total lazy kids who couldn't care less to even the smart, 4.0 kids who get stuck doing an assigment or two last minute. According to Perry, structured procrastination allows someone to accomplish lots of lower-importance tasks or even difficult tasks, just as long as something else looms to be finished as well, we always do something else instead. I feel like I do this sometimes with school work based on the class; if I find the work in a class a bit easier, I might do that before something else that I might find a bit harder. However, this could work in the reverse too, since an assignment could be so relatively easy that you just blow it off to the last minute because it won't take that long anyways.

Basically, Perry seems to state that procrastinators are good, accomplished people which is somewhat true, but as always, there are horrible procrastinators that never get anything done. But I do like the ending of Perry's article, where he states, "And what could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the bad effects of another?" I guess that's just what's so powerful about procrastination; use some of your other academic skills and you just may pull everything off without a hitch.