Procrastination and deadlines: when delay helps creativity and when it hurts
Adam Grant describes a creative upside to procrastination, while Rick Rubin explains which phases of a project benefit from deadlines and which suffer. The contrast helps creators decide when to wait for ideas to incubate and when to force a finish.
The Short Version
Delay helps creative work in one specific place: the stretch before you commit to an idea, when your mind still needs time to wander, collect and recombine. Organizational psychologist Adam Grant found that people who procrastinated a moderate amount produced more creative ideas than both those who dove in immediately and those who waited until the last minute, but only when they actually cared about the task [1]. Music producer Rick Rubin reached a matching conclusion from decades in the studio: the early phases of a project (collecting seeds and experimenting) should have no deadline at all, while the later phases (crafting and completion) can take a deadline, and it may even help [2][3]. Put together, the rule of thumb is to start early, keep the idea loose while it incubates, and then impose a private deadline once you can see the end, so the finish doesn't drag on forever.
Table of contents
What They Said
Adam Grant: procrastination is emotional avoidance, and a little of it breeds originality
Grant came to the subject thinking he was immune. He finished his college thesis a couple of months early, to his roommates' annoyance, and then learned there was a word for people like him: "I'm a pre-crastinator" [1]. For him, the focus and pressure most people feel near a deadline arrive the moment a project starts, sometimes months or years in advance [1]. He then discovered, somewhat to his disappointment, that he procrastinates too: "I procrastinate on anything that's administrative," along with grading [1].
That discovery shaped his definition. Procrastination, as the summary puts his view, means delaying despite an expected cost [1]. And the research, Grant says, shows it isn't really about avoiding work; people will clean their entire houses rather than face one task [1]. In his words, "It's that you're avoiding negative emotions that a task starts up" [1]. For him the emotion is boredom. For others it's fear or anxiety (I don't know if I can pull this off), imposter feelings, the sense that the challenge is too daunting, or confusion, where you feel stuck because you haven't figured the problem out yet [1].
With his doctoral student Jihae Shin, Grant then asked whether procrastination has any upside for creativity [1]. The first study was in a Korean company, where employees who procrastinated sometimes were rated by their supervisors as more creative than those who rarely did [1]. The relationship wasn't a straight line. Grant describes it plainly: "the peak of creativity is in the middle of procrastination," and "there's an upside down U curve there" [1].
To test cause rather than correlation, the team moved into the lab, which raised an odd problem: "how do you randomly assign people to procrastinate?" [1]. Their solution was to give participants creative problems resembling real job tasks and tempt them with highly entertaining YouTube videos on their screens, varying how many videos appeared [1]. With one video, you aren't tempted much. "If there are four, you're probably going to get stuck into a little bit of a YouTube spiral," Grant says, and with eight you might put off the less exciting task in favor of something like Jimmy Kimmel's mean tweets segment [1]. The outcome matched the field study: "the people who were tempted to procrastinate moderately ended up generating the most creative ideas" [1].
Grant explains the curve by looking at both ends. In both cases, "you end up with a little bit of tunnel vision" [1]. The pre-crastinator's problem is speed: "So when I dive right into a task, I'm stuck with my first ideas. And I don't wait long enough to incubate and get my best ideas" [1]. Diving straight in also makes him "less likely to reframe the problem" and "less likely to access remote knowledge" [1]. Chronic procrastinators land in the same trap from the other side. Because they start at the last minute, "they have to rush ahead with the easiest idea to implement as opposed to really developing the most novel idea" [1]. The people in the middle feel some pressure (they realize they can't keep spinning their wheels on videos), yet "They still have enough time to work on the ideas that were active in the back of their minds," which gives them a shot at more novel ideas [1].
There is a crucial condition. The creative benefit of moderate procrastination appeared only when people were intrinsically interested in the task [1]. Delay on something you don't care about doesn't incubate anything.
Grant has turned this into his own process. He still starts early, but, as he puts it, "I will still dive into a project ahead of schedule. But I will not commit to an idea until I've let it incubate for a few weeks" [1]. For a new book, he waits at least a month before drafting [1].
Andrew Huberman: the deadline lover (who may not be a procrastinator at all)
Huberman, hosting both conversations, offered himself as a test case. "I learned in college that I love, love, love deadlines, because it seems to harness my focus and my attention," he told Grant [1]. A deadline gives him just enough anxiety, or autonomic arousal, to bring about "a total elimination of all of the distractors," and it seems to both slow and speed up his sense of time [1]. He would rather others set the deadlines, but in their absence, "procrastination is a terrific way to simulate the deadline" [1]. Knowing "okay, I've got 72 hours to complete something" builds a useful internal arousal [1].
Grant's response was that, by definition, this doesn't really count as procrastination: Huberman is delaying for an expected benefit, not despite an expected cost [1]. Huberman also added a detail that fits Grant's incubation story: his process begins long before he visibly sits down to write. He is thinking about the work constantly, gets ideas while taking out the recycling, voice-memos them, and says, "I have a method of capture where I basically try and just grab everything and then filter out what's useful" [1]. He raised the "shower effect," noting that his own best ideas come in the first hour after waking, which is why he carries a notebook [1]. In the Rubin conversation he credits Joe Strummer's advice that if you have an idea you should write it down, because if you wait it will be gone [3].
Rick Rubin: four phases, and deadlines only for the last ones
Rubin's view came from writing his book, The Creative Act. For most of his career, he said, he treated every stage of a project identically: "Everything had a wide open time schedule. It happens when it happens. If it takes two years or three years, it doesn't matter" [2]. The only criterion was that the work had to be great [2]. Working on the book changed that: "we're not required to treat the different phases of work in the same way" [2].
He lays out four phases [2][3]:
- Seed collecting. An ongoing part of life, whether or not he's working on anything. Anything that sparks interest gets noted; he gives the example of wondering whether a movie exists about something, and if not, whether one should be made [2][3]. "So in the seed phase, there's no deadlines," he says [2].
- Experimentation. You find out what the seeds want to do. "You're involved, but you're not really dictating the action" [2]. He compares it to gardening: you plant the seed, water it, put it in the sun and wait, but you can't make it grow [2][3].
- Crafting. Once something has grown, it becomes material: you might trim it or combine it with other plants to make something new, asking what you can match it with and how you can be involved as a craftsman [2][3].
- Completion. The final edit, getting to the version you can share with the world [2][3].
The central lesson is about timing. Once you're into the completion phase, Rubin says, "you can have a deadline. And it won't hurt the project. In fact, it might help the project. And I didn't know that before" [2]. He is candid about the cost of not knowing it: "So I've worked on projects that have gone longer than they necessarily needed to, and maybe not in the best interest of the project, because I didn't know that" [2]. He was so aware that the experimental phase needs freedom from deadlines that he assumed the same held through the whole project [2]. The summaries of both conversations frame it the same way: deadlines can hurt the early phases but help once you are deep into crafting and completion [2][3].
The phases aren't a neat sequence. "You move back and forth between them. I'm collecting seeds all the time," Rubin says [2]. Something is usually in some form of experimentation, and items on his list may or may not get their turn [2]. The signal that a deadline has become appropriate is visibility of the finish: "By the end of the crafting phase or deep into the crafting phase, you can start seeing the end," and at that point you can even dictate an end [2].
His one caveat is who the deadline is for. "I recommend if you do, just dictate it for you, not for anyone else" [2]. The reason is that a late discovery might reveal the work can be much better: you realize "oh, this could actually be much better than I thought, but I need more time," and "It's harder to do that if you set the deadline" publicly [2]. A private deadline lets you break your own rule when it's worth it [3].
Rubin also explains why finishing is hard enough to need help. Until you declare something done, you can keep experimenting and changing it, and "if you think, well, maybe tomorrow I can make it better, then it's not finished," a mindset in which "you can do that forever and never, never put out anything" [2]. His remedy, besides the deadline, is "to use whatever the next project is going to be as motivation to finish the one you're working on now" [2]. Tinkering forever means never getting to make the thing you want to make next [3]. He adds that finishing itself feels good: "It's usually a good feeling when something is done" [2].
When Huberman asked whether he has ever been in grinding mode, pushing through the night with the coffee on, Rubin answered, "A lot, a lot over the course of my life a lot, not as much now" [2].
Rubin's version of incubation: total focus, then walk away
Rubin doesn't use the word procrastination, but he builds incubation into his daily practice. When he engages with a project, whether for 20 minutes or five hours, it gets "total focus and no outside distraction whatsoever" [2]. When he leaves, he tries not to think about it: "I don't leave the studio with works in progress" to listen to during the day [2]. Ideally, rather than working on Project A and then doing nothing, he throws himself fully into Projects B, C and D before returning to A [2]. He believes the subconscious keeps working meanwhile, and says "to stew over a problem is not the way to solve a problem"; problems should be held lightly [2][3].
He also describes the early phase as receptive rather than forced. At work, he says, he is hoping something good comes and paying attention, "but knowing I don't have the ability to make it happen. I can just be present for it and be ready if it does arrive" [2]. He admits to anxiety at the start of every project, because what emerges is out of his control, and that anxiety persists "Even though it has never not come" [2]. Something usually arrives within the first day or two [3].
Where They Agree, and Where They Don't
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Agreement: early commitment is the enemy of originality
Grant and Rubin reach the same practical conclusion from different evidence, Grant from field and lab studies [1], Rubin from reverse-engineering decisions that worked in his own career [3]. Both say the front end of creative work needs room. Grant's pre-crastinators get stuck with their first ideas [1]; Rubin's experimentation phase is one where you set the stage but don't dictate the action [2]. Both also say that some kind of time pressure has a place: Grant's most creative group was the one starting to feel pressure while still having time left [1], and Rubin found that a deadline in the completion phase might help the project [2].
Both also locate incubation in the back of the mind rather than in forced effort. Grant's middle group works on ideas "active in the back of their minds" [1]; Rubin disengages between sessions because he trusts the subconscious to keep working [2][3].
Disagreement 1: is delay the tool, or is structure?
The contrast in the brief is real, though it's more a difference of emphasis than a clash. Grant's research treats moderate delay itself as the mechanism: you put a task off a little, and the ideas ripen [1]. But his own practice has moved away from literal procrastination. He starts projects early and simply refuses to commit to an idea for a few weeks [1]. Rubin never frames delay as useful in itself. He frames the absence of deadlines in early phases as useful, and fills the gaps with other projects rather than avoidance [2]. Rubin's disengagement is deliberate; Grant's research subjects were being distracted by YouTube videos [1][2].
Disagreement 2: are deadlines good for focus?
Huberman loves deadlines for their power to clear away distraction [1]. Rubin, for most of his career, wanted no deadlines anywhere, and now accepts them only late in a project [2]. Grant sits between them: his data suggest that some pressure, felt after a period of incubation, beats both no pressure and last-minute pressure [1]. Grant points out that Huberman's self-imposed time crunch isn't procrastination in the technical sense, because it's chosen for its benefit [1]. Read against Rubin's phases, Huberman's approach looks well suited to the finishing stretch, and his constant capturing of ideas resembles Rubin's always-on seed collecting [1][2]. The sources don't test whether deadline-driven focus harms Huberman's early idea generation; that remains an open question.
Disagreement 3: public or private pressure?
Huberman says he'd prefer other people to impose his deadlines [1]. Rubin warns against exactly that for creative work: a public deadline makes it harder to take extra time when you discover the work could be much better [2]. Grant doesn't speak to public versus private deadlines directly, though his lab design used an external time limit on the task [1].
Disagreement 4: what the emotion at the start means
Grant says procrastination is avoidance of a negative emotion such as fear, anxiety or confusion [1]. Rubin feels anxiety at the start of every project but doesn't avoid the work; he shows up, stays present and waits [2]. Huberman, in the longer Rubin conversation, frames anxiety as a state of readiness, citing his former graduate student Lindsey Salay's work showing animals can be highly anxious while moving toward a goal [3]. The same feeling can drive avoidance or preparation, depending on what you do with it.
Why It Works
Tunnel vision at both extremes. Grant's explanation is that immediate action and last-minute panic both narrow thinking [1]. Diving in early locks you onto first ideas and reduces the chance you'll reframe the problem or draw on remote knowledge [1]. Starting too late forces you to pick the easiest idea to implement [1]. The middle leaves time for ideas to develop while adding enough pressure to act on them [1].
Incubation needs interest. The creative benefit only appeared among people intrinsically interested in the task [1]. The plausible reading, consistent with Grant's framing, is that the mind only keeps turning over problems it cares about in the background; the summary doesn't give a further mechanism, so this is as far as the evidence goes.
Narrowing and widening the aperture. Huberman describes his lab's research showing that animals pursuing survival goals narrow their visual focus, and their behavioral playbook narrows with it, which suggests new ideas might require broadening vision or thinking [2]. Rubin refines it: new ideas come from changing the aperture away from the standard, which can mean either broadening or narrowing [2]. This maps loosely onto the phase idea: the open, deadline-free early phases allow the shift away from the standard, while the deadline-driven finish benefits from the narrowed focus Huberman describes in himself [1][2]. Huberman himself raised this with Rubin, noting that at some point creative work becomes strategy implementation, with a component "that involves packaging and finishing" [2].
The subconscious works when you leave. Rubin's disengagement rests on his belief that the subconscious keeps working and that stewing doesn't solve problems [2][3]. Huberman's "shower effect," with ideas arriving while showering, running, falling asleep or just after waking, points in the same direction [1].
Open-ended finishing never ends. The completion phase has its own trap: as long as you think tomorrow could make it better, it isn't finished [2]. A deadline at that stage converts an endless loop into a commitment, and Rubin's experience of projects running longer than was good for them is his evidence [2].
Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't
Applies to creative, open-ended problems. Grant's lab tasks were creative problems similar to real job challenges [1], and Rubin's phases describe making art, books and records [2][3]. The benefit of delay is about generating novel ideas, not about getting routine work done.
Doesn't apply to tasks you don't care about. The moderate-procrastination benefit disappeared when people weren't intrinsically interested [1]. Putting off your expense report won't make it more original; it's the administrative kind of task Grant himself avoids out of boredom [1].
Doesn't apply at the extremes. Chronic procrastination performs as badly as pre-crastination on creativity, because it forces the easiest idea [1]. And Grant's definition reminds us that real procrastination carries an expected cost [1].
Deadlines don't belong in the seed or experimentation phases. Rubin is emphatic that there are no deadlines in seed collecting, and that the experimental phase needs freedom from them [2]. Imposing pressure there risks the same premature commitment Grant describes [1][2].
Deadlines do belong at the end, preferably private ones. Once you can see the end, a deadline won't hurt and may help [2]. Public deadlines trade away flexibility you might need if the work turns out to have more potential [2].
Personal method is not universal. Rubin warns against assuming your way is best because it worked before: "it's just a way, and it's just a way that happened to work that time" [2]. Advice from experienced people reflects their data points, not yours [2][3]. Grant is a natural pre-crastinator, Huberman a deadline lover, Rubin a lifelong open-ender who changed his mind late; each adapted the principle to his temperament [1][2].
When avoidance is really distress. If procrastination is driven by strong fear, anxiety or feeling like an imposter, which Grant lists among its common causes [1], the creative-incubation framing may not fit, and a mental health professional can help where that avoidance is persistent or disabling.
What To Do With It
Name the emotion behind your delay. Before deciding whether a delay is helping, ask what you're avoiding: boredom, fear, confusion or imposter feelings, the triggers Grant lists [1]. Delay driven by avoidance on a task you don't care about has no creative upside [1].
Start early, commit late. Copy Grant's rule: begin a project ahead of schedule, but don't lock in an idea until it has had a few weeks to incubate, or at least a month for something as large as a book [1].
Keep seed collecting permanent and deadline-free. Note anything that interests you, the way Rubin wonders whether a movie on a subject exists [2], and capture ideas the moment they arrive, as Huberman does with notebooks and voice memos [1][3].
Experiment without a clock. In the experimentation phase, set the stage and see what the seeds want to do, without dictating the outcome [2]. Resist pressure to choose a direction early, since that's where first-idea tunnel vision sets in [1].
Work in bursts of total focus, then walk away. Give a session your full attention with no distractions, whether it lasts 20 minutes or five hours, then don't take the work home; switch to another project and let the subconscious carry the first one [2][3].
Set the deadline when you can see the end. Deep into crafting, when the finish becomes visible, pick a date [2]. That's the point where Rubin says a deadline won't hurt and may help, and where Huberman's love of time pressure can do its best work [1][2].
Keep that deadline private. Set it for yourself, not for anyone else, so that if you discover the work could be much better, you can take the extra time [2].
Use the next project as the pull to finish this one. When you catch yourself thinking it might be better tomorrow, remember that endless tinkering means never making the next thing you want to make [2][3].
Aim for the middle of the curve. If you're a natural pre-crastinator, build in deliberate incubation time; if you're a chronic last-minute worker, start early enough that you still have time to develop a novel idea instead of the easiest one [1].
Check your method against the phase you're in. If a project has dragged on far longer than it should, ask whether you're treating the completion phase like the experimentation phase, the mistake Rubin says cost some of his projects [2].