Incubate Overnight at Room Temperature: The Science of Procrastination

Procrastination is a quiet thief of time. It sneaks in unnoticed, disguised as logic, reason, and sometimes even efficiency. In science, it wears a lab coat and whispers reassuringly, There’s always tomorrow.

It often starts with a simple pause—a moment of hesitation before setting up an experiment. The rationalizations come quickly: I should double-check the protocol. I’ll get better results if I wait until I’m more focused. Maybe I should read another paper first. Before long, the minutes stretch into hours, and suddenly, the workday is over. That’s when the ultimate justification emerges, neatly written in a lab notebook: Incubate overnight at room temperature.



On the surface, this phrase is a standard instruction in many protocols and a necessary step in specific experiments. But more often than not, it becomes a scientist’s way of saying, I’ll deal with this later. It’s an elegant way of postponing the inevitable, pushing work to another day under the guise of following procedure.

The problem is that science doesn’t wait. The pace of research is relentless, and every delay, however small, accumulates over time. Procrastination extends beyond a single experiment, seeping into larger projects—manuscripts that sit unfinished, grant proposals perpetually in draft form, and data waiting to be analyzed. Each delay creates another hurdle, making the next step feel heavier and harder to overcome.

But why do we procrastinate? It’s rarely about laziness. Often, it’s rooted in perfectionism, fear of failure, or even the overwhelming complexity of the task ahead. The irony is that the more we delay, the harder it becomes to start. The solution is deceptively simple: Begin.

Science, like progress, thrives on momentum. A reaction mixture left unprepared today means results arrive a day later. A postponed experiment means another week added to the timeline. The hardest part is always the first pipette, the first data entry, or the first step. Once the work begins, the resistance fades, replaced by the familiar rhythm of the lab.

So, the next time procrastination offers its usual excuse, I will remind myself: Incubating overnight at room temperature is not always about science—it’s often about avoidance. And the only way to overcome it is to start. Not later. Not tomorrow. But now.

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