• paediatrics
• child health

OK. I’ll come clean. Occasionally, I procrastinate. Both editorially and clinically if an acute situation doesn’t demand an instant response. There it is, I’ve said it now: out in the open for all to see. This, though, can be advantageous, so let me add a few lines of defence. This verb (state of being, literally in Latin, to leave until tomorrow) has, rather unfairly found use largely pejoratively. Just think of the euphemisms: ‘laboured’, ‘sluggish’, ‘blunted’, ‘lethargic’, ‘manacled by inertia’, and so on… But, I counter parry, these similes do procrastination an injustice. Used correctly (and there to me is l’arte) it sometimes just needs a night’s sleep. It allows a stocktake, a reconsideration, a refuelling, a more nuanced assessment to make a better decision. So, for all the bravado of the cheetah, don’t dismiss the sloth out of hand…