Are you a Procrastinator ? What kind ?

I am a moderate procrastinator! I do not like to tackle an activity immediately after I get it. If I am given time, I will use the time. When I need to prepare a speech, a presentation, a project charter, or need to share my opinion, I like to understand the objective, the purpose and I think right away how to do it, but then I stop. I let the ideas and concepts boil a little bit inside my brain.

As I do other stuff in my life, that topic is in the back of my brain, always saying "I'm here, remember me ?". As I see more stuff, that at a first glance may seem totally disconnected from the topic, I start to find connections, I start to have new ideas, find new ways to look at it. The more I see the more I learn. That drives me to research about these new ideas. Not in a frantic manner. Just keep collecting the pieces.

At some point, closer to the deadline, I feel the pressure to put those thoughts on the paper. I have to ideate it in an actual piece of paper (or my iPad), but not just throwing scattered ideas on the paper. I need to put it in a format, so I create a framework. My way to have all those ideas interconnected in a story telling format.

When I am dangerously close to the deadline, I find a quiet place for me to focus (to allow the "Flow" to happen) and I start to work on the actual speech or presentation. When I finish, there is no time, but also no need to rehearse. The ideas are very fresh and all interconnected inside my brain. All I have to do is to present it. Those who saw my presentations know that the content is normally up to date, relevant, funny (to some extent) and presented with a lot of passion and a few surprising concepts. Yes, I know ! My slides tend to be very busy. That is my cheat sheet. I have memory issues, so I need to have every idea on the slide, however, my presentation is so dynamic, that there is a flow of ideas and the excess info does not bother.

I finally found a scientific explanation to explain my behaviour on a TED Talk from Adam Grant (Professor at Wharton School) called "The surprising habits of original thinkers" . How about you ?

https://www.ted.com/talks/adam_grant_the_surprising_habits_of_original_thinkers?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tedspread