Active waiting vs. procrastination

I have a copy of Robert Boyce’s “Advice for New Faculty Members” sitting on a shelf on top of my desk at home. As I was looking for an excuse avoid working on a research paper, I decided to flip through it. The book has been tremendously helpful during my first yeast at the university in terms of setting a framework for best practices in allocating time and efforts in teaching and research. The most effective practices are all laid out there in plain sight, supported by (sometimes too much of) statistical data.

Regarding writing in particular (as this is what I was avoiding) the first point that Boice makes is that it pays off not to rush into pouring words on the page. Instead, the best writers wait until they have sufficiently played with the ideas and supporting material in their heads to actually have something to say in their manuscripts. I was quite pleased with this idea: my procrastination was actually supposed to be productive in some indirect way.

There is a difference, however, between “active waiting’, how Boice calls it, and simply avoiding work. The former is a conscious, mindful process. It sets the stage for more efficient work.

In my experience, active writing is absolutely crucial in a creative process. Photography or painting are great examples. Without some planning and taking time to create a mental representation the photo shoot or a painting season becomes a mindless going through the motions, a naive practice, to borrow a term from Anders Ericsson.

In kendo, the active waiting is formalized in the pre-practice ritual in the form of mokuso, a brief period of group meditation. Ironically, the meaning of it is not often discussed in modern dojos, as we are too focussed on getting to the practice itself, i.e. to literally just going through the motions.