Okay, this is a trick question. Procrastination is both a blessing and a curse, depending on context.

Sometimes, your mind says yes – but your body says no. In these cases, should you force your way through tasks, heedless of quality? Is it wise to do sloppy work when you’re exhausted?

Of course not. Pushing yourself to work harder and faster when you don’t have it in you only decreases your productivity. If you force yourself to work hard during your low-energy times, you’ll only damage your productivity.

Say it’s a Wednesday. You’re tired and feel a headache coming on. However, you decide to stay late and complete just one more task before heading home. You finish this task but use up your stamina for the rest of the week.

On Thursday and Friday, you complete two fewer tasks each day than normal. By working yourself to the bone on Wednesday, you increased your daily productivity by 1 task. However, you decreased your weekly productivity by 3 tasks.

If you had accepted your low-energy state, gone home on time, and binge-watched your favorite show, your week would have looked very different.

You would have had the energy to put in a normal amount of work on Thursday and Friday, breaking even for the week. By not working more and trying harder, you would have completed 3 more tasks.

However, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes 5 pm rolls around – and you’re on fire.

Should you head home? Or, should you stay late and make the most of this extra burst of energy?

Procrastination isn’t black and white. You won’t achieve optimal productivity by pushing yourself too hard or too little (or by bouncing back and forth between these extremes).

Wise professionals balance their workloads, ambitions, and self-care activities to increase their weekly and monthly (not daily) productivity levels.