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The smart guide to procrastination - BBC
Putting play before work may seem irresponsible, but experts argue that this counterintuitive move might actually make you more productive in the long run.
Mozart was out drinking one day when his friends became uneasy. It was 3 November, 1787 in Prague and the next day was the premiere of his latest opera, ‘Don Giovanni’. It was set to become one of the most acclaimed musical works in history, a true masterpiece that’s still doing the rounds in opera houses across the globe centuries later.
There was just one problem: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart hadn’t written the introduction yet. Evidently, the master composer was also an expert procrastinator, since he had actually been working that day – just on something else.
According to an account published in 1845, eventually Mozart’s companions convinced him that he could delay no longer and at midnight he went back to his room to get to work. He slogged away all night, as his wife plied him with punch to keep him awake. In the end, he pulled it off, but it delayed the next evening’s performance because there wasn’t time for the introduction to be copied or rehearsed.
Putting play before work may seem irresponsible, but experts argue that this counterintuitive move might actually make you more productive in the long run.
Mozart was out drinking one day when his friends became uneasy. It was 3 November, 1787 in Prague and the next day was the premiere of his latest opera, ‘Don Giovanni’. It was set to become one of the most acclaimed musical works in history, a true masterpiece that’s still doing the rounds in opera houses across the globe centuries later.
There was just one problem: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart hadn’t written the introduction yet. Evidently, the master composer was also an expert procrastinator, since he had actually been working that day – just on something else.
According to an account published in 1845, eventually Mozart’s companions convinced him that he could delay no longer and at midnight he went back to his room to get to work. He slogged away all night, as his wife plied him with punch to keep him awake. In the end, he pulled it off, but it delayed the next evening’s performance because there wasn’t time for the introduction to be copied or rehearsed.