How many of us look around furtively and then bend over our laptops – even in the dead of night, when nobody could possibly see – when we are doing what could be considered ‘procrastinating’ on the world wide web? It’s the time when we are investigating new pathways, or new ideas, and they are not about our business – and if anyone saw us, they would say ‘what are you up to, timewasting again?’
What if we reframed this word, and instead of ‘procrastination’, called it ‘thoughtspace’, or ‘thinking time’, and saw it as a tool for development rather than as a waste of time. Perhaps then the furtive, guilty feeling would be gone for good, and we could see our so-called online procrastinations as what they are – a rest and recuperation session for our grey matter, and a chance to bring other people’s brilliance into our own way of doing business.
Apparently even Sheryl Sandberg ‘procrastinates’, which is a word I personally detest. But look carefully at what she has to say in her answer on Quora (and I was one of the people who up-voted that answer). She guessed the answer must be ‘yes’ – but she doesn’t use the word procrastinate (wise woman), and she also says how much she has learned. Perhaps she would see her time spent on Quora as thinking time, or thoughtspace, too.
Does Sheryl Sandberg Ever Procrastinate?
1 Answer
Sheryl Sandberg • Request Bio
245.5k Views • Upvoted by Marc Bodnick, Sheryl’s brother-in-law
I guess the answer must be yes since I am reading Quora right now rather than finishing up my work for the night. I did, however, learn some interesting things — lots of good questions and answers about social media and how people use it.
Written 3 Apr • View Upvotes • Asked to answer by Anonymous and Ash Menon
The chance to learn, and to see it as thoughtspace, is why I use Quora; the number of wonderful subject matter experts, the opinions people put forth, the ways to jump down a rabbit hole of knowledge… all of these are resources which I may one day put into practice, and I store them away carefully.
Are they direct sources of bottom-line profit? No.
Does this equally mean they don’t have bottom-line value? No.
Sometimes we are so driven by the vision of being in the black, we forget about what actually got us to that vision in the first place.
It’s our ability to ideate, to create, to see with strategic clarity and thoughtfulness, which gives us the opportunity for a profitable business. If we don’t take the time to nurture this ability, then we are hobbling our influential appeal – and thus our profit statement will, long-term, become a loss.
Thinking time is about asking questions of ourselves. It allows us the time to collect reasonable and honest answers – whether it be through research, or simply by not jumping in with our hearts rather than our hearts plus our heads when it comes to making a decision, or answering someone or something important.
This is what thoughtspace is all about. Thinking, and time.
Turn procrastination from the dirty word it is, into something wonderful and influential. Make the thoughtspace something people want to think about.
I might put that on Quora.
‘Does Sheryl Sandberg have her own Thoughtspace? If not, I just trademarked it, and I was wondering if Zuck would like to buy it from me?’
Now there’s a good use of thinking time.
