Procrastination is not generally benefical

When you hear the word procrastination, other words might come to mind as well, such as lazy, irresponsible, or reckless. But in truth those traits are misconceptions developed by our culture and have nothing to do with procrastination in its essence. That being said, I ask that you keep an open mind and look deeper than the stereotypes that may at first cloud your vision. Before I begin I want to remind the audience that the definition this debate is using to define procrastination is; "the avoidance of doing a task which needs to be accomplished. " I also want to clarify a little bit on what the burden of proof is. My opponent's job is to prove the resolution, "procrastination is not generally beneficial," to be true. My job is to prove that the resolution is false. In other words, I do not have to prove that procrastination is generally beneficial rather that it is generally not non-beneficial. A subtle difference, but a difference none the less and the importance of this will be shown in one of my rebuttles. I will now present my arguments, and then address my opponents arguments. Argument 1: Procrastination can benefit us in our everyday lives It gives us an energy boost. The most common tasks that people procastinate on are tasks that are intimidating or cause a kind of fear due to the size and weight of a project. "As a deadline approaches, we fear the consequences of not getting it done on time. That fear releases adrenaline, a natural pain killer, and feeling less pain makes doing difficult or less desirable tasks easier. Energy is the strongest benefit of procrastination. " -Steve Mcclatchy [1] Without procrastinating, completing the same task would be a lot more difficult. It helps us focus and save time. When one procrastinates and waits till the last possible moment to complete a task, their focus will be unwavering. Things that would have normally distracted them, emails, facebook, youtube videos, the possibility to go out for lunch with a friend, are no longer an option because they know it's either now or never. This also saves them the time that they would have spent doing all these things if the deadline had not motivated them to avoid distractions. They also save time because they finsihed the task quicker; They gave themselves a tight time frame that they had to complete the task resulting, finshing in record time. It allows fresh and creative thinking. Procrastination is the process of leaving a task till a time that would be more ideal to complete it. Many times someones mindset might not be right for a certain task at the moment and if they were to not procrastinate and try to complete that task right then and there, then they would most likely do a minimal and uncreative job. Procrastination allows one to clear their mind by doing other more simple tasks or by taking a nice long break. Although they may spend a lot of time do "nothing," when they do get around to completing the task they do it faster and with more creativity. [2] Recent studies reveal that the trick to creativity often lies in walking away from a problem, giving the mind the freedom to wander and the space to make new connections, an idea explored in a Wall Street Journal article. [4] It allows us to complete smaller tasks easily. When someone procrastinates on a large task, suddenly all the smaller tasks that need to get done as well seem easy and one will complete those smaller tasks while they procrastinate on the bigger task. [1] It motivates us to work with passion. "If you work on something you can finish in a day or two, you can expect to have a nice feeling of accomplishment fairly soon. If the reward is indefinitely far in the future, it seems less real. " [3] Argument 2: Procrastination is not only beneficial, lbut nescisary For every task, in order to do it well there must be some extent of procrastination before hand; you must avoid doing a task enough to prepare to do it. If you rush into trying to complete a task before you"ve even thought through how to do it, more often than not it won't end with good results. Argument 3: Procrastinating is like eating carrots There once was a young girl who lived in a village far away from civilization. Around this village in the open fields grew thousands of wild carrots. Sadly, when the villagers tried to consume these carrots they tried to swallow them whole and choked on them. From then on the people of the village thought that carrots were from the devil. All of them except the young girl; She gave the carrots another try and found that they go down a lot better when you chew them first. The moral of this tale is, there"s a right way to eat carrots and a wrong way just like there's a beneficial way to procrastinate and there's a non-beneficial way. But most people would agree that carrots aren't bad, in fact, most would say they are generally beneficial and it's about time that the misconceptions of procrastination be abolished as well. Carrots are not from the devil, neither is procrastination. Argument 4: Whether we like it or not, we all are constantly procrastinating. We all constantly have multiple tasks that need to get done but that we are avoiding in order to complete other necessary tasks. If you don't procrastinate at all that means you have no life; You have no schedule or agenda or responsibilities. Rebuttle 1: My opponent argues that I'd you prastinate breathing aka hold your breath long enough it would cause a negative result, maybe even death. My opponent then claims that because of this, procrastination is generally non-benificial. There is a breathing method called Pranayama Breathing that has many health benefits including relaxation and enhanced focus. And guess what, this breathing method requires procrastination while breathing; you have to hold your breathe as one of the steps. [5] Step 2 of my oponents argument claimed that avoiding the act of breathing is bad but i just proved that it can be beneficial. And remeber, just because carrots can cause choking doesnt mean that they are generally unhealthy. Therefore I say, procrastination is not generally non-benificial. Rebuttle 2: My opponent claims that procrastination that isn't productive and is a mindless escape is a problem, yet there are scientific studies showing we need both those things. Our bodies need rest and although rest is not itself productive, it results in productivity later on. Our brains also need an escape so that they can clear. [6] Rebuttle 3: I agree with Shia; Just Do It! But before you just do it, make sure you procrastinate enough; avoid doing it enough to know what it is you want to do and the best way to do it. Again I say, chase your dreams! But before you do, wait long enough to find out if it's a dream worth chasing. Once you find that out, then just do it! Rebuttle 4: My openent claims that time does not exist and just to make things interesting, I'll go along with it. But if time doesn't exist and if procrastination doesn't exist, then procrastination can neither be beneficial nor non-beneficial. It's simply impossible. Therefore the resolution, in this case that time doesn't exist, could not be possible. And let me remind you that my job is to prove that the resolution is false. The resolution is false. Please vote con. Sources: [1] . http://www.fastcompany.com... [2] . https://www.psychologytoday.com... [3] . http://www.paulgraham.com... [4] . http://qz.com... [5]. https://www.unm.edu... [6] . http://www.scientificamerican.com... Disclaimer: I wrote this debate on a mobile device while traveling so I wasn't able to bold any text. My apologies.