By-Two Kaapi in an oilfield

John Perry, a professor of Philosophy at Stanford, in his 1995 paper titled "Structured Procrastination", says:

The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing. They do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganise their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important.

I love this guy! He gives a brilliant example of structured procrastination:

... when my wife and I served as Resident Fellows in Soto House, a Stanford dormitory. In the evening, faced with papers to grade, lectures to prepare, committee work to be done, I would leave our cottage next to the dorm and go over to the lounge and play ping-pong with the residents, or talk over things with them in their rooms, or just sit there and read the paper. I got a reputation for being a terrific Resident Fellow, and one of the rare profs on campus who spent time with undergraduates and got to know them. What a set up: play ping pong as a way of not doing more important things, and get a reputation as Mr. Chips.

Can I agree more with him! I have taken secret pride in being a procrastinator-par-excellence. Thanks to which I almost ended up flunking my engineering exams. But also thanks to unknowingly structuring my procrastination, I am what I am now, thinking of startups and the likes.

But sometimes when the structure in 'Structured Procrastination' loosens up, shit hits the fan.

Update: Have been reading feeds and blogging all morning. Boss comes in and reminds me that I had to present my work(which is yet to be started) in the morning.