"Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work"

My dying houseplants wouldn’t appreciate it, but this essay by Paul Graham continues to make me think about good vs. bad procrastination when trying to tackle complicated projects.

Excerpt:

“You can’t look a big problem too directly in the eye. You have to approach it somewhat obliquely. But you have to adjust the angle just right: you have to be facing the big problem directly enough that you catch some of the excitement radiating from it, but not so much that it paralyzes you. You can tighten the angle once you get going, just as a sailboat can sail closer to the wind once it gets underway.”

~ by linoleumjet on March 2, 2006.