The one-sentence summary

Self-deception and procrastination go hand-in-hand, exploiting the thin line between couldn’t and wouldn’t, but there are things you can do about it.

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WHAT THE BOOK SAYS PROCRASTINATION

  • It is subtitled How to stop putting things off and start getting things done.
  • The author is the world’s leading authority on the science of motivation and procrastination. He uses a decade of research to suggest ways we can combat our failure to get stuff done, and the nasty effects of stress, unhappiness, poor health and financial problems that inevitably follow.
  • Self-deception and procrastination go hand-in-hand, exploiting the thin line between couldn’t and wouldn’t.
  • 95% of us procrastinate, but interestingly perfectionists aren’t the guilty ones.
  • The Procrastination equation is: Motivation = Expectancy x Value divided by Impulsiveness x Delay.
  • Impulsiveness leads procrastinators to be disorganised and distractible – what people want now seems more attractive than the true goal (70% of students suffer from it).
  • Expectancy is high in optimists and low for those with learned helplessness.
  • Expectancy x Value is the basis of Expected Utility Theory
  • Hating the work, proximity to temptation and failing to plan all contribute, and the virulence of the temptation is crucial.

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

  • “If the human mind was simple enough to understand, we’d be too simple to understand it.” Emerson Pugh
  • Drawing a line between onset and completion, procrastinators always fall below it with regard to achievement and effort, and suddenly start working at the last minute.
  • Modernisation increases procrastination – up from 5% in the western world in the 70s to 20-25% now.
  • In a work context, people procrastinate on average for 2 hours a day, out of 8 hours, costing the USA alone over a trillion dollars a year.
  • Email takes up 40% of working life, and the snooze button is ‘the devil’s device’.
  • Avoidance goals are bad (“I won’t do x…”) Approach goals are good (“I will do y…”)
  • Precommitment decreases the chances of procrastination
  • Sophisticates acknowledge their self-control problems and take steps, while naifs are constantly caught unaware by sudden shifts in their inclinations.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

  • It is part science, part self-help. You can try applying the ideas, unless you want to put it off…