6 Reasons Reading Is The Best Way To Procrastinate
When I was in college, a friend of mine gave me the best advice I’ve ever received about procrastination, advice her father had given her: If you’re going to procrastinate, do it by tackling something else that’s also useful. This may sound obvious, but since I was someone who could get in a good few hours of procrastination time by staring at a blank wall and daydreaming (this was pre-Facebook, after all), it was a revelation to me.
Since I was taking an English literature class at the time, I was in the enviable position of being able to procrastinate writing my poli sci papers by delving into novels I had to read anyway—for actual college credit! But even if you’re not at the stage of life where making you way through your bookshelf can help you score an A, reading is still one of the best things you can do with your procrastination time. Here’s why.
#1. You’ll sound smarter
You may not actually finish writing that report for work when you were supposed to, but you’ll sound smarter saying “I stayed up half the night reading Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami,” than “I stayed up half the night watching the third season of Gilmore Girls. Again.”
#2. You’ll actually be smarter—or at least more knowledgeable
If you’re going to procrastinate (and if you’re like me, you will), you may as well do it by educating yourself about what it would have been like to be a painted lady in Japan around World War II (by reading Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha), or how to trek home during the Civil War without being captured as a deserting “outlier” (by reading Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain), or what it’s like to be on the cusp of starvation during the Nazi siege of Leningrad (as explored in The Siege, by Helen Dunmore).
#3. You’re accomplishing something
Sure, maybe that “something” isn’t what you set out to do, but finishing a few chapters of Gone With the Wind (or all 1,048 pages of it) is an achievement too. And you can tick it off your checklist for the rest of your life! Whereas if you had pretended to yourself that you were going to quickly check that one little thing online and started a never-ending fight with a Facebook troll, what would you be able to check off?
#4. It will help you age better
A recent study in the journal Neurology found that cognitive activity related to reading is associated with a reduced rate of cognitive decline later in life. So it would be really shortsighted to resist cracking open the latest bestseller or catching up on a classic you missed out on just because of your to-do list. After all, this is your health we’re talking about.
#5. It’s safer
Some people say they procrastinate by cleaning the house, but do you know how dangerous cleaning the house can be? You could injure your back trying to retrieve the lost Lego colony under the couch, sprain your ankle slipping on the wet floor, or cut the palm of your hand when the glass you’re trying to wash breaks into smithereens. Sprawling on the couch with a book is much more likely to keep you intact. Safety first, people!
#6. What, me procrastinate?
So maybe now you’ve realized you haven’t been procrastinating after all. You’ve been learning about dental hygiene and the best way to keep the kitchen sink shiny! I mean, White Teeth and Housekeeping are self-help guides, right?