Efficiency through procrastination

Let me set up the story, I had to bring home work this weekend. I work for a law firm and I have a large production of documents due on Monday. If you've been following along, I recently started a new job. My new job is a version or so behind what I'm used to in the software used for database management. Well, a lot of things are automated in those newer versions. Since we don't have those newer versions, things must be done by hand and a lot slower. So, when a production is due, several days notice is given and we work on it for those several days in order to get it ready, as apposed to my old job where only several hours notice (if you were lucky) were given. Well, I had a lot of documents to save images of with the necessary redactions to them. My boss had streamlined the process so it was possible to get about 300 images done per hour. Well, I had about 1700 to do this weekend. Yeah...I got started at about 8 pm on Sunday. Not a good idea. This would be one of those time that demonstrate the very definition of procrastination. Well, after tonight, I have a new theory. I think that procrastination is one of the key catalysts for new and innovative ideas. After I started working, I realized how bad an idea it was to wait this long to get started. I HAD to find some way of speeding this up or I was going to be up all night. So, I brainstormed an idea and did some quick Google searches. I found some key pieces of software that happen to be freeware and installed them. With the two little gems I found, I was able to take the time for processing the images from 300 an hour to all 1700 in under an hour. Oh yeah, I was able to mostly automate the entire process using nothing but free tools available online. If I hadn't of procrastinated, I might have just done my job the normal way and it probably would have taken me hours upon hours. I didn't though, I waited until the last minute (figuratively speaking) and it forced me to find a faster alternative solution. Due to my procrastination, I was able to streamline a process that took hours to do and now all of our future productions will run much, much quicker. I just wanted to say that every once in a while, something good happens because of a bad habit. Not always, not even occasionally, but every great once in a while it does.