Jumping into action too quickly can injure your career, lower your credibility and destroy your competitiveness

Most of the things I most regret saying or doing I did immediately. Why didn’t I wait? If I’d given myself time to think, I could have seen each one was a bad idea from the start. Nevertheless I rushed ahead, convinced I couldn’t afford to wait. And so I emerged looking stupid, or crass, or incompetent, or all of the above.

That’s why procrastination is often the only thing that stands between you and humiliation. Why it works to save you from yourself and some truly bad impulses. Why you should sometimes give if free rein.

You often need procrastination to slow you down, especially those of you who hold (or, in my case, held) leadership positions. When you rush into foolish actions, you destroy your credibility and undermine people’s trust in you. You also set a bad example to the people you’re leading. They rely on you to show them how to cope. Instead, you’ve just revealed yourself to be a helpless ninny, caught in the grip of childish impatience.

More productive . . . but of what?

In part, it’s the virus of our modern lust for speed: the needless sense that anything done quicker is automatically better that infects people everywhere: on the roads, in offices and factories, in shopping malls and restaurants. Hurry up! Cut to the chase! Move on! Can’t waste time! Don’t slow everyone up by thinking, dammit!

The truth is that we are not so much short of time as short of the ability and willingness to use it well. By cramming as much as possible into as little as we can, we imagine we’re being more productive. Yet all we are producing are more stress, more irritation and more confusion. Even if we are raising our outputs of goods, we are lowering our standards and our quality of life.

The more you rush your work, the lower your satisfaction with the outcome will be. Much of it will have to be done again. Rushed thinking is superficial and inadequate. Hurried relationships and fleeting contacts leave you lonely and hungry for more. Where’s the productivity in any of this behavior?

What causes people to act in this way?

Pressure. Fear. Anxiety that, if they don’t jump when the boss says to, someone else will; and that someone will get their promotion or bonus. The belief that looking busy counts for more than doing something worthwhile.

Leaders have given in to the pressures on them as well. They are as much victims of the cult of profit-at-any-price as its perpetrators. It’s easier to rush about, constantly demonstrating how tough, determined and driven you are, than to show the courage to tell Wall Street that the short-term profits they demand can only be purchased at the cost of lowered fitness to prosper in the longer term. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that years of fake booms and sudden busts have left the US economy (and currency) weaker and less able to compete than before. Craven politicians and greedy financiers can’t help a country to maintain its position in the world, let alone enhance it.

Emotions are often to blame too

There was a time when people saw emotions for what they are: powerful forces that need to be kept under control. Then along came Freud and told us to believe repressing emotions was a sure road to mental health problems. But repressing isn’t the same as curbing. When emotions are repressed, we deny they exist; we don’t take them seriously and so allow them to fester. If we curb our emotional urges, we’re simply deciding that now isn’t the time or the place to indulge them.

Confusion in words leads to confusion in action, and many people believe it’s somehow more authentic Staying in control of your emotions is a sign of maturity and balance. It can be good to display emotions, especially if they’re positive. Sometimes it’s right to accept anger, hurt and rage, so they can be dealt with without harm. But many times the sensible course of action is to acknowledge the emotion, then consciously let it go. Yes, I’m harassed and mad, but I’m not going to act out of emotion. I’ll stop and think instead.

Leaders need to lead — which often means saying “No”

It’s time leaders did what their positions require and made it clear that the only sane answer to constant demands for short-term success at the cost of long-term decline is a very loud “no!”

There’s a right speed for everything. Sometimes it’s quick, sometimes not. Doing something too slowly when it needs speed is a mistake. So is rushing something that needs time. Choosing the right tempo is essential to success. If leaders rewarded those who used time wisely, people would both slow down and become far more productive as a result.

Slow down. Let your emotions cool and your ideas mature. Give yourself time to do things properly; time for second thoughts and fully considered actions. Stop ‘winning’ today in ways that ensure you’re going to lose heavily tomorrow. That’s true productivity, not the fake kind that trades sensible outcomes for the look of being busier than the next guy.

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