People wouldnt procrastinate if there wasn't some evolutionary advantage...
Personally, I have found that if I get on with certain tasks in a team environment with too much vigor, I start to get other team members feeling left out or feeling their input isn't adding value. Keep doing it and the team will fall apart. Sitting around and being lazy for a bit helps keep the team together and has more forward progress overall.
I've experienced that on the other side; I ended up procrastinating a lot because any effort I did would already be done by someone else, and faster or with more insight, or the work I did would be done over by someone else in half the time. It also didn't help that the work and technology weren't giving me much satisfaction.
I'm the sole developer on a new project now, it's giving me a lot more satisfaction. I do run into procrastination and analysis paralysis though.
> People wouldnt procrastinate if there wasn't some evolutionary advantage...
That's probably not a reasonable assumption. Evolution doesn't work so fast. Procrastination might simply be an indication that we're not living under liveable conditions. Why do octopuses eat their own limbs under some conditions? Does it give them an evolutionary advantage?
Not sure how authentic it is, but here [1] is an explanation:
> It is believed that it is caused by a virus/bacteria which can manage to take hold on a stressed octopus. The biting is said to be due to irritation and biting alleviates the affected area. An octopus can lose an arm without harm and regrow it. By biting it off, the octopus loses the infected arm and hopefully a healthy one regrows, but in captive situations, probably caused by bad water quality, the infection can't be shaken off.
It's amazing the number of things which have been top priority for some time which them drop off the list never to be heard from again, or at least modified beyond recognition.
It is probably a poor defence of procrastination but it certainly does occasionally pay to put something on the back burner for a while to see if it actually needs doing.
Similar angle, I leave so many things to the last minute but tend to deliver on time. If it was harmful to me to leave things to the last minute, I would have more incentive not to do it, but it's never been consequential. Alternatively, delivering early has rarely been profitable or positive.
On an evolutionary timescale, we've pretty much always been hunter gatherers... Sitting around being lazy with our friends, picking stuff up off the ground and eating it, occasionally running some animal in to the ground...
The activities that people tend to procrastinate didn't exist until very recently...
Personally, I have found that if I get on with certain tasks in a team environment with too much vigor, I start to get other team members feeling left out or feeling their input isn't adding value. Keep doing it and the team will fall apart. Sitting around and being lazy for a bit helps keep the team together and has more forward progress overall.