I have had a fair amount of press for my work on procrastination over the years, but this one “Later: What does procrastination tell us about ourselves?” by James Surowiecki is a nice treat.

I get to be mentioned among luminaries, really people at the top of the academic game, like David Laibson, George Akerlof, Joseph Stiglitz, and George Ainslie. The book that James Surowiecki is reviewing is The Thief of Time, a collection of essays on procrastination, some good stuff that I am going to enjoy teasing apart over the next few months. James Surowiecki begins his article with a nice anecdote involving Akerlof procrastinating sending a package to Stiglitz. To continue this theme, I thought I would add a few more, starting with Chrisoula Andreou and Mark White, the editors of The Thief of Time. They did kindly invite me to submit a paper for a symposium on the economic implications of procrastination. Here was Mark’s reply:

We have good news and bad news.

The good news is that we really like your piece.

The bad news is that the rest of the people in the symposium either dropped out due to adverse personal circumstances or have been completely unresponsive to attempts at communication. So basically, there will be no procrastination symposium.

There you have it. A procrastination symposium that never happened, likely because too many of the participants procrastinated. Just because you research a topic, doesn’t make you immune to its effects. Similarly, Matthew Rabin, winner of the MacArthur Genius Award, confesses this in his book chapter Procrastination in Preparing for Retirement:

One of us, for example, has kept an average of over $20,000 in his checking account during the last ten years despite earning an average of less than 1 percent interests on this account and having easy access to very liquid alternative investments earning much much. While he (Rabin) may be an unusually bad procrastinator, economically significant procrastination seems prevalent.

And let’s not leave out Burka and Yuen, authors of the 1983 classic “Procrastination: Why you do it and what to do about it.” They start off their book with a rather ironical self-confession given the topic matter:

We know procrastination from the inside out: Between us, we have been through many college all-nighters, spent long years struggling with our doctoral dissertations, paid late tax penalties, and made up elaborate stories to excuse our delays (having to visit a sick grandparent in the hospital is an all-time favorite). We’re still marveling that we finished this book only two years after the original deadline!

Finally, Clarry Lay, the first researcher who really dug into topic with his paper At Last, My Research Article on Procrastination, is simply famous for his disorganized and procrastinatory ways in everyday life. Partly, there are so many easy examples of procrastination because research is me-search, in that we are attracted to what we experience firsthand (but don’t read into this too much, given that I have also done work on sexual harassment, workplace violence, and driving with a cell phone).

However, the other reason that examples abound is that almost everyone procrastinates, with about 95% of the population self-confessing to putting off despite being worse off and 25% admitting to doing so chronically. In 1992, Noach Milgram wrote a piece titled El retraso: Una enfermedad de los tempos modernos, or Procrastination: A malady of modern times. It is only gotten more prevalent since then and it has yet to stop increasing. Really, procrastination, or at least the causes that enable it, is baked into our culture. I go into it in Chapter Four of my book, ProcrastiNations: How Modern Life Ensures Distraction. If you are procrastinating just a little, consider yourself lucky: almost everyone else is procrastinating a lot.

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Well, if you have stumbled upon this website, let me quickly establish what you have discovered with a video by John Kelly:

Until I find a better use of my time, and don’t expect that to happen for a long time, I will be feeding this site. With what? With an indepth exploration of procrastination. Borrowing on John Kelly’s piece, this is what we will explore for as long as you are willing to join me:

Procrastination is wonderful and awful. Procrastination is funny and tragic. Procrastination affects everyone, including the famous. Procrastination is hardwired into us. Procrastination can be overcome. Procrastination is responsible for society’s tragedies. Procrastination can kill you. Procrastination is a vice of all major religions. Procrastination isn’t always so bad. Procrastination is fun to watch, especially when you are procrastinating. Procrastination isn’t acknowledged by economists. Procrastination is celebrated by humorists. Procrastination is getting worse. Procrastination is about you.

Over the ensuing while, together we will find out who is a procrastinator and how come. We will find out how the very structure of society is designed to increase it and that most major societal problems are influenced by procrastination. Best of all, we explore proven, scientifically tested techniques designed to help overcome this tendency to leave life until tomorrow. There is so much I want to share with you about this delightful and dangerous aspect of ourselves. And, if a particular aspect of procrastination fascinates you, let me know. I’ll see if I can address it. Let’s take the first step and begin.