The Procrastination Equation Read online

  THE PROCRASTINATION EQUATION

  How to Stop Putting Things Off

  and Start Getting Stuff Done

  PIERS STEEL, PhD

  “To my brother Toby. He knew that the clock is always ticking.”

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter One - Portrait of a Procrastinator

  Chapter Two - The Procrastination Equation

  Chapter Three - Wired for Procrastination

  Chapter Four - Procrastinations

  Chapter Five - The Personal Price of Procrastination

  Chapter Six - The Economic Cost of Procrastination

  Chapter Seven - Optimizing Optimism

  Chapter Eight - Love It or Leave It

  Chapter Nine - In Good Time

  Chapter Ten - Making it Work

  Postscript - Procrastination’s Chapter 11

  Notes

  Index

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Portrait of a Procrastinator

  Never put off till tomorrow,

  what you can do the day after tomorrow.

  MARK TWAIN

  This book is about every promise you made to yourself but broke. It is about every goal you set but let slide, never finding the motivation. It is about diets postponed, late-night scrambles to finish projects, and disappointed looks from the people who depend on you—or from the one you see in the mirror. It is about being the slacker in your family and the straggler in your circle of friends. It is about that menacing cloud of uncompleted chores, from the late bill payments to the clutter that fills your home. It is about that doctor’s appointment you have been putting off and the finances still in disarray. It is about dawdling, delay, opportunity lost, and more. Much more. This book is also about the other side, the moments of action when procrastination gives way to crystal clarity and attention, work is devoured without hesitation, and giving up never even occurs to you. It is about personal transformation, about unencumbered desire free of internal competition, and the guiltless leisure you can enjoy when your daily tasks are done. This book is about potential, wasted and fulfilled; about dreams that fade into obscurity and dreams we can make come true. Best of all, this book is about shifting the rest of your life away from putting it off to getting it done.

  The pivot point that tips us away from accomplishing what we want and need to do is procrastination. It isn’t a question of laziness, although the two are easily confused. Unlike the truly slothful, procrastinators want to do what they need to do—and usually do get around to it, but not without a lot of struggle. I will show that this dillydallying is in part hereditary, and that we are hardwired to delay. Our tendency to put things off took a hundred million years to form and is now almost etched into our being. But research shows that, despite its ingrained nature, we can modify our habits and change this behavior. Procrastinators who understand the processes behind their inaction can master them and become less stressed about their deadlines and more able to meet them.

  This book tells procrastination’s story. It stretches from Memphis of ancient Egypt to modern New York City, from the cancer ward to the stock market floor. I hope to enlighten you about why we procrastinate, what comes of procrastination, and what strategies we can employ to do something about it. We will start off simply, establishing what procrastination is, helping you decide whether you are a procrastinator, and if so, how you likely experience a bout of procrastination. If you are a procrastinator—and the odds are good that you are—you are part of a very large community indeed. It is time we all got to know each other a little bit better.

  WHAT PROCRASTINATION IS AND ISN’T

  There is so much confusion about procrastination that it is best to lay our subject bare on the dissecting table and start immediately separating the dilly from the dally. By procrastinating you are not just delaying, though delay is an integral part of what you are doing. Procrastination comes from the Latin pro, which means “forward, forth, or in favor of,” and crastinus, which means “of tomorrow.” But procrastination means so much more than its literal meaning. Prudence, patience, and prioritizing all have elements of delay, yet none means the same as procrastination. Since its first appearance in the English language in the sixteenth century, procrastination has identified not just any delay but an irrational one—that is, when we voluntarily put off tasks despite believing ourselves to be worse off for doing so. When we procrastinate, we know we are acting against our own best interests.

  Still, you will find people mischaracterizing wise delays as procrastination. Seeing a co-worker stretched out in his office chair, arms crossed behind his head, relaxed, you ask what he is up to and get a cheerful response of “Me? I’m procrastinating!” But he isn’t. He is happily putting off a report because he knows there is a good chance that the project is going to be cancelled later this week, and if it isn’t, well, he can still definitely write it at the last minute anyway. This is smart. In this scenario, it is the person who compulsively has to finish everything as soon as possible who is irrational, tackling work even when it is destined to become irrelevant. The obsessive who completes every task at the first opportunity can be just as dysfunctional as the procrastinator who leaves everything to the last moment. Neither one is scheduling time intelligently.

  Consequently, it isn’t procrastination if you fail to arrive at a party far earlier than everyone else or if you don’t get to the airport for your flight three hours in advance. By delaying a little bit, you save awkward moments with your host, who is likely still getting things ready, and you will be spared uncomfortable hours at your gate waiting for your plane to take off. Neither is it procrastination to respond to emergencies by dropping (and putting off) everything else. Insisting that you should finish mowing the front lawn before attending to your house, which has just caught fire, isn’t smart. Sure, you didn’t put off trimming the grass, but the charred ruin of your home is too high a price to pay. Alternatively, flexibly adapting your schedule to respond to the pressing needs of a spouse or a child will likely save you from ruining your family. Not everything can happen at once; it is in your choice of what to do now and what to delay that procrastination happens, not in delay itself.

  YOU THE PROCRASTINATOR

  Now that we understand what procrastination is, do you practice it? Where do you land in the ranks of procrastination? Are you a garden-variety dillydallier or are you hardcore with “tomorrow” tattooed across your back? There are some entertaining methods that may reveal your propensity to procrastinate. To begin, check your handwriting. If it is sluggish and disjointed, it may indicate you are likewise. Alternatively, look to the stars . . . well, really the planets. Astrologers note that when Mercury is in retrograde or in opposition to Jupiter, procrastination tends to be on the uptick.1 Or try a tarot card reading. The “Two of Swords” often indicates you are split with a dilemma and procrastinating on your decision. Personally, I prefer a more scientific approach.

  You can go to my website, www.procrastinus.com, for a comprehensive test that I’ve administered to tens of thousands of subjects, and compare your level of irrational delay with those of individuals around the world. However, if time is pressing and you wish not to delay, you might try the shorter quiz provided below. Complete the mini-version here by circling your response to each of these nine items and then calculating the total. Note that questions 2, 5, and 8 are scored in the opposite direction from the other items:

  Stands For:

  1. VERY SELDOM OR NOT TRUE OF ME

  2. SELDOM TRUE OF MEr />
  3. SOMETIMES TRUE OF ME

  4. OFTEN TRUE OF ME

  5. VERY OFTEN TRUE OR TRUE OF ME

  * * *

  1. I delay tasks beyond what is reasonable.

  1 2 3 4 5

  2. I do everything when I believe it needs to be done.

  5 4 3 2 1

  3. I often regret not getting to tasks sooner.

  1 2 3 4 5

  4. There are aspects of my life that I put off, though I know I shouldn’t.

  1 2 3 4 5

  5. If there is something I should do, I get to it before attending to lesser tasks.

  5 4 3 2 1

  6. I put things off so long that my well-being or efficiency unnecessarily suffers.

  1 2 3 4 5

  7. At the end of the day, I know I could have spent the time better.

  1 2 3 4 5

  8. I spend my time wisely.

  5 4 3 2 1

  9. When I should be doing one thing, I will do another.

  1 2 3 4 5

  * * *

  TOTAL SCORE _______

  SCORE

  19 or less

  COMPARED TO EVERYONE ELSE

  You are in the bottom 10%

  Your mantra is “first-things-first”

  SCORE

  20-23

  COMPARED TO EVERYONE ELSE

  You are in the bottom 10-25%

  SCORE

  24-31

  COMPARED TO EVERYONE ELSE

  You are in the middle 50%

  Average procrastinator

  SCORE

  32-36

  COMPARED TO EVERYONE ELSE

  You are in the top 10-25%

  SCORE

  37 or more

  COMPARED TO EVERYONE ELSE

  You are in the top 10%

  Tomorrow is your middle name

  Where did you end up? Are you legendary for leaving things to the last minute or do you only put off exercising and taxes, like almost everyone else?

  PROCRASTINATION POLKA

  The higher you scored on that procrastination test, the greater the chance that you are procrastinating right now. Certain other tasks should be occupying your attention—which sadly means you have better things to do than reading this book. These tasks are likely unpleasant, possibly administrative and boring, and perhaps difficult to visualize as being successfully accomplished. Let me make a few guesses about what is on your plate:

  • Is your laundry basket overflowing?

  • Are there dirty dishes in the sink?

  • Do your smoke detectors need new batteries?

  • How about your car battery? What is the air pressure in your tires and how long has it been since the last oil change?

  • Isn’t there a ticket to book, a room to reserve, a bag to pack, a passport to renew?

  • Have you informed your boss about your vacation plans?

  • Have you bought a gift for that upcoming birthday?

  • Have you filled out your time sheets, performance reviews, and expense reports?

  • Did you hold that difficult conversation with the employee whose work is not up to par?

  • Have you scheduled the meeting you are dreading?

  • What about the big project your boss gave you? Are you making progress?

  • Did you make it to the gym this week?

  • Have you called your mom?

  How does that list strike you? You can add to it, of course. Even if I didn’t score a direct hit, you were likely procrastinating somewhere else, pushing a task into the future. On its own, each of these postponed tasks has few repercussions. Together, they can culminate in misery by nibbling away at your life. The major project, the one with the hard deadline, is the mother of all such concerns; it can keep you awake at night and make it difficult to accomplish any of the other tasks on your list. At one time or another, we have all felt motivationally marooned and unable to get around to the report, the research, the writing, the presentation to prep, or the exam to ace.

  There is a common pattern to all procrastination and it goes something like this. At the start of a big project, time is abundant. You wallow in its elastic embrace. You make a few passes at getting down to it, but nothing makes you feel wholeheartedly engaged. If the job can be forgotten, you’ll forget it. Then the day arrives when you really intend to get down to work; but suddenly it’s just something you don’t feel like doing. You can’t get traction. Every time you try to wrap your mind around it, something distracts you, defeating your attempts at progress. So you forward your task to a date with more hours, only to find that every tomorrow seems to have the same twenty-four. At the end of each of these days, you face the disquieting mystery of where it went. This goes on for a while.

  Eventually, time’s limited nature reveals itself. Hours, once tossed carelessly away, become increasingly limited and precious. That very pressure makes it hard to get started. You want to get going on the big project but instead you take on peripheral chores. You clean your office or clean up your e-mail; you exercise; you shop and cook. Part of you knows this isn’t what you should be doing, and so you say to yourself, “I am doing this; at least I am preparing by doing something.” Eventually, it is too late in the day to really get started, so you may as well go to bed. And the cycle of avoidance starts again with the dawn.

  Sometimes, to quell your anxiety, you give in to total diversion. You take a moment to check your e-mail or the sports scores. From there, why not respond to a few messages or watch a few minutes of TV? Soon these temptations have seduced you. The task still waggles itself in the periphery of your vision, but you don’t want to look it in the eye—it will have you if you look—so you burrow deeper into your distractions. You write long passionate comments on online forums, troll for news tidbits, or manically switch TV channels at the first ebb of interest. Pleasure turns to powerlessness as you become unable to extract yourself.

  As the deadline approaches, you make the diversions more intense so that they will sufficiently distract you. Banishing anything that reminds you of the dreaded thing, you shun calendars and timepieces. In a willful distortion of reality, you shift your plans from what you once could solidly accomplish to what is minimally possible. When you should be working harder than ever, you are sleeping in, daydreaming of alternative worlds, of winning the lottery, of being anywhere but here. As anxiety mounts, you want immediate relief, escape, rewards—anything that gives you the illusion of safe harbor. If friends or relatives or co-workers try to separate you from your diversions, you meet them with an annoyed: “Just a minute! I’LL DO IT AFTER THIS!” Unfortunately, “this” never ends. Secretly, you are full of self-recrimination and self-doubt, envious of those who simply get things done.

  Energy builds until finally a threshold is crossed and something clicks. You start working. Some inner mind has quietly boiled the task down to its essence, as there are no more moments to spare. You wade into the work, making ruthless decisions and astonishing progress. In place of that menacing cloudiness, a glittering clarity comes over you. There is purity to your work, fueled by the real urgency of now or never. For a lucky few, this surge of efficiency will enable them to get the project done. For others, this initial rush wanes before the cursed thing is completed. After too many hours of sleepless concentration, brains shut down. Caffeine and sugar only offer an unsatisfying buzz. Tick, tock . . . the time has run out. You limp across the finish line with insufficient preparation, giving the world your second best.

  This is so common as to be unremarkable—except to the person who has suffered through the experience and knows the performance was not up to par. The relief at getting a job done doesn’t always make up for doing a sloppy job. Even if you managed to perform brilliantly, the achievement is tainted with a whiff of what might have been. And this kind of procrastination has likely cast a cloud on an evening out, a party, or a vacation, which you couldn’t fully enjoy because half of your mind was elsewhere, obsessing about what you were avoi
ding. You resolve that this will never happen again; the cost of procrastination is too great.

  The trouble with such resolutions is that procrastination is a habit that tends to endure. Instead of dealing with our delays, we excuse ourselves from them—self-deception and procrastination often go hand-in-hand.2 Exploiting the thin line between couldn’t and wouldn’t, we exaggerate the difficulties we faced and come up with justifications: a bad chest cold, an allergic reaction that caused sleepiness, a friend’s crisis that demanded our attention. Or we deflect responsibility entirely by saying, “Gee whiz, who knew?” If you couldn’t have anticipated the situation, then you can’t be blamed. For example, how would you respond to the following questions regarding your last bout of procrastination?

  • Did you know the task was going to take so long?

  • Did you realize that the consequences of being late were so dire?

  • Could you have expected that last-minute emergency?

  The honest answers are likely yes, yup, and definitely, but it’s difficult to answer honestly, isn’t it? And that is the problem.

  Some procrastinators will even try to frame their self-destructive inaction as a thoughtful choice. For example, is it wrong to put off your career to pursue more family time? It depends on who you are. Some people relish the work-focused model of success, resenting time taken away from the job, and so they may miss out on family dinners and school plays. Others prosper in the home and community, enjoying the relationships nurtured there, at the expense of tasks at work. To the casual observer, it isn’t easy to tell which choice is procrastination and which is a purposeful decision. Only the procrastinator knows for sure.