Reading that essay, it sounds an awful lot like "Lean Development"[0], although in my own work I have often found that things that seem super urgent in one particular moment often benefit a great deal from setting them aside as long as you can stand, as that makes the requirements more concrete. It also means that you don't end up doing work on things that probably don't need doing.
I've been putting off (for a long time) one big, complicated user requested feature on my mobile app to do with archiving/managing a local database on the mobile device. It turned out that the things I thought I needed 12 months ago I don't really need at all, so procrastinating about it actually improved the delivered experience.
I do procrastinate, but I think it's a useful trait when you find yourself dealing with a big organisation that tends to throw off useless tasks because somebody feels like if they aren't producing requests, then they aren't being productive (middle management disease).
I remember reading a very long time ago that someone did some research on this very subject and found that the majority of problems go away if you don't deal with them. They concluded that this could be part of the reason procrastination exists - procrastinators had a genetic advantage in saving a lot of energy.
This makes even more sense if you consider that the majority of the need to perform tasks in an evolutionary context would have come form other humans. Simply not doing anything while waiting to see who returns more angry to get their stuff done would have obviated the need to keep track of a task list oneself.
One thing I did learn as I got older was that, unless an actual life is at stake, somebody elses deadline is usually artificial. None of the things I work on involve life threatening situations and while it's sometimes hard to keep your head when disaster is looming, keeping perspective is important.
So figuring out when the "last responsible moment" is, generally it isn't right now. For me at least.
I've been putting off (for a long time) one big, complicated user requested feature on my mobile app to do with archiving/managing a local database on the mobile device. It turned out that the things I thought I needed 12 months ago I don't really need at all, so procrastinating about it actually improved the delivered experience.
I do procrastinate, but I think it's a useful trait when you find yourself dealing with a big organisation that tends to throw off useless tasks because somebody feels like if they aren't producing requests, then they aren't being productive (middle management disease).
[0]https://www.planview.com/resources/articles/lkdc-principles-...