Procrastination

To work or to shirk (my responsibilities that is), that is the question I am repeatedly faced with. Nine times out of ten I shirk, resulting in in stress, a sense of guilt, a loss of productivity, the possible creation of crisis and the disapproval of others for not fulfilling my commitments. Pretty dumb, huh? I agree. Why then am I constantly struggling with my urge to procrastinate?

Merriam-Webster Online defines the verb "procrastinate" as follows:

To intentionally and habitually put off.

I disagree with part of this definition, at least as it relates to my own behavior. I would not use the word intentionally to describe how I put things off, because rarely if ever do I intend to ignore or put off work. I almost always intend to get things done, keep my apartment clean, and generally stay ahead of my work. But as Steinbeck wrote in "Of Mice and Men" (adapted of course from Robert Burns' "To a Mouse"), the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. But don't get distracted by my awesome use of quotations from 9th grade English, I am not without fault. The word I would substitute for intentional in the Merriam-Webster definition is consciously. I realize that I should be responding to emails/cleaning/studying/writing a paper/whatever else is on my to do list, yet I end up doing something else. A conscious decision usually, but never my intention. I don't expect anyone to understand, but I figure I ought to at least try to explain if I want to be a highly effective person. As Stephen Covey wrote, "Seek first to understand,then to be understood."

(I know, I know, you are probably amazed at my ability to throw in quotes to support my blogging. Don't worry, I would be amazed too, and trust me, this is only the tip of the iceberg)

I need to understand procrastination better, Merriam-Webster just isn't cutting it. Which is why I would like to introduce you all to Professor Piers Steel (cool name, although if his parents had named him "Cold" or "Blue" I would have been even more impressed) of the University of Calgary in Calgary. He is a psychologist who has spent years studying, you guessed it, why people put off until tomorrow what they could do today. I read about his work in an article from the Telegraph (it's a newspaper in the United Kingdom) that my brother somehow found and emailed me (thanks Daniel). Steel argues that procrastinators (who apparently make up about 20% of the population, who knew!) are not lazy, which is huge for me, because I may be many things, but don't call me lazy. The vice procrastinators are afflicted with is that of impulsiveness. Now after reading this I knew he was onto something because I cannot help impulse buying things in the checkout line at Walmart. But what really got my attention was that he came up with a mathematical equation for why people procrastinate (and he actually did a study of college students, so I feel like there is empirical data to support this man's work, never mind the fact that I did not read the results of his study myself and am taking the word of a British periodical...).

U=EV/ID


The 'U' stands for utility, or the desire to complete a given task. It is equal to the product of E, the expectation of success, and V the value of completion, divided by the product of I, the immediacy of the task, and D, the personal sensitivity to delay.

Now perhaps I am a bit of a nerd (okay I am) but this makes a lot of sense to me. In my own reality I wait until the last second to do things because I believe that I can still get it done without having to do it immediately. In fact I have trained myself to operate this way, and unfortunately have been positively reinforced to believe that I can not only finish things at the last second, but also be successful and achieve at a high level when doing so. Lazy people in contrast, are not bothered by whether they can finish a job--they just do not want to do it.

So am I a bad person for postponing things with delayed rewards (like work) in favor of things that offer immediate rewards (like TV and the internet)? I would like to think not. But as I am maturing in my life I recognize that although I have managed to be successful up to this point with an attitude of procrastination, if I want to continue being successful (and I do) then I need to work on changing. It is going to be a hard thing for me to overcome. You see, even writing this blog about procrastination has allowed me to put off doing more productive work (i.e. work from my to do list).

Thank you for helping me put off my work, I couldn't have done it without you.

Enjoy this funny Youtube video, the Second Semester of Spanish Spanish Love Song: