A few weeks ago, I wrote an article titled “The Medicine in Slow Work” (find it here). The article celebrates the merits of taking our time in creating our life’s expression and not feel pressured to speed things out the door if we’re not thrilled by that vibe.

But because SLOW WORK can often be confused with PROCRASTINATION, it’s important to know the difference so you can make deliberate, intentional progress in 2020, minus the hustle and minus the procrastination.

Here are some differences between slow work and procrastination:

(1) Slow work isn’t necessarily TIME SLOW as it is presence-rich. We allow ourselves space and time to BE WITH something.

Example: You choose to go for a swim in the ocean because this is where you get relaxed and creative ideas to pour in. You get an instant download from source and it takes a week or two of unpacking and integrating the wisdom to make sense of it or inspire you to create something with it.

In this space, you are not NOT doing anything. You’re actively choosing to BE WITH yourself receiving, unpacking and letting the magic of the message work through you.

Maybe that unpacking takes seconds. Maybe it takes days or weeks or months. Your process has its own unfolding.

Procrastination, on the other hand, is actually time fast and presence-poor.

Because of an instant need TO NOT BE WITH something that makes us uncomfortable, we self-distract as quickly as possible.

Procrastination stops the process of: emergence ➡️unpacking + sense-making ➡️creation ➡️ implementation.

(2) Slow work has its own frequency of patience, curiosity and care, always checking in (pausing) to see if one is in harmonic vibration with self or out of tune and adjusting accordingly

“How do I feel with this? Does it speak to me? Is my highest self present? Am I serving the highest good?

Procrastination has the frequency of NUMBING. “I’ll do anything BUT BE CURIOUS with why I don’t want to go there or do that thing right now.  The only question procrastination asks is:

“How can I get out of this?”

(3) Slow work can have a work/life plan that supports and accommodates the creator and their spacious pace and it can thrive with life-affirming discipline.

You, in fact, can stimulate yourself to be in “receiving mode” or “creating mode” or “implementing mode”, these states don’t always happen on a mere whim (or when the lightning strikes as they say).

Procrastination, on the other hand, is a wild beast and won’t be contained. More like an unruly child that simply throws itself on the floor saying “You can’t make me” it quickly spirals out of hand into the comfort of numbing inertia.

Now I’d like to hear from you!

Is this breakdown helpful? Are you prone to procrastination? How do you see yourself moving into 2020, are you thirsty for slow work or are you eager for a speedier “hit the ground running” kind of vibe?