Procrastination

“If and When were planted,

and Nothing grew.” – Proverb

Procrastination is a type of behavior which is characterized by deferment of actions or tasks to a later time.  Psychology Today has a list of ten things you should know about procrastination.  According to the article, “It’s not trivial, although as a culture we don’t take it seriously as a problem. It represents a profound problem of self-regulation. And there may be more of it in the U.S. than in other countries because we are so nice; we don’t call people on their excuses (“my grandmother died last week”) even when we don’t believe them.” 

 

The Writing Center at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a handout that says, “Everyone procrastinates. We put things off because we don’t want to do them, or because we have too many other things on our plates. Putting things off—big or small—is part of being human.”

Paul Graham is an essayist, programmer, and programming language designer.  He says that procrastination cannot be cured.  He says that procrastination can be good or bad. His theory is that there are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a) nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more important. That last type, I’d argue, is good procrastination.

So what do you think?  It’s the beginning of the New Year when people make plans with good intentions.   At the end of last year, they went over all the things on the resolution list for 2008.  Some things were forgotten as soon as they were written.  Others were pushed down the list as more important or interesting things moved up the list.   “You may delay, but time will not.”
Benjamin Franklin   So what’s your feelings?