Productive procrastination
Παραγωγική αναβλητικότητα
Real and useful work, done in the place where a different and less appealing piece of work was due. It is hard to catch because nothing about it looks like avoidance from the outside, and very often the work itself is good.
How to spot it
Write in one line the complaint the new idea removes, in the words the person who complained used. If you cannot write the line, that is the finding.
The research behind the term
The term is not our invention. It comes from published research, and what follows is what that research found — our own synthesis of the published abstract, not a translation of the original.
Kaufman, J. C., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Beyond Big and Little: The Four C Model of Creativity — doi:10.1037/a0013688
What it found
- Until then, research moved between two poles: everyday creativity ("little-c") and the creativity of the eminent ("Big-C").
- A four-level model is proposed that adds "mini-c", the creativity inherent in the learning process itself.
- Also added is "Pro-c", the developmental and effortful trajectory beyond everyday creativity, corresponding to a professional level of expertise.
- The authors describe the transitions and gradations between the four levels.
How it found it
A conceptual paper that extends an established dichotomy into a four-part model, with examples and a discussion of its advantages.
What it means for creativity
The beginner's creativity is not a degraded version of the expert's; it is a distinct level with its own value — and the path between them is effortful and gradual.
Practised in
The term does not stay a definition. It appears inside missions where the pattern happens in real time and you have to recognise it as it happens to you.
The Rebuild Nobody Asked For
Sources
Every claim on this page maps to published research. The citations link to the original source.
- Kaufman, J. C., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Beyond Big and Little: The Four C Model of Creativity — doi:10.1037/a0013688