The Procrastination Equation (32 page)

^2e
The most infamous excuse is to claim the death of a grandparent. Mortality of grandparents increases several hundredfold during final exams, a statistic that if taken seriously suggests that seeing the grandkids being tested is extremely stressful for the elderly.

^3a
The Latin name for Great Tits is Parus major; despite the suggestive name, all but begging to be made fun of, they are the best studied bird in the world.

^3b
Gary Marcus, a New York University psychologist and author of Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, concludes that “over hundreds of millions of years, evolution selected strongly for creatures that lived largely in the moment.”

^3c
In Greek today, malakia has a somewhat fouler meaning, possibly best translated as “wanker.”

^3d
Naturally, Dr. Johnson procrastinated writing that very article until the last possible moment, composing it in Sir Joshua Reynolds' parlor while the errand boy waited outside to bring it to press. “Typical,” as his friend Hester Piozzi remembered, given that “numberless are the instances of his writing under immediate pressure of importunity or distress.”

^4a
It was definitely a bad idea.

^4b
Alternatively, you will get almost the same type of slope with a fixed ratio schedule, which occurs when there is a set amount of work to be done before reaping your reward. For example, piece-rate factory workers who get paid for every one hundred units produced tend to work a little harder as they approach that hundredth mark and then they take a breather. In the professional literature, this is known as “break and run,” the pattern of taking a break after completing a work block before accelerating once again toward the next finish line.

^4c
Similarly, and at about the same time, the psychologist Stuart Vyse reports in Going Broke: Why Americans Can’t Hold On to Their Money, “Any time the urge strikes, we now have the capability to act on it impulsively, and that creates a much greater challenge for us than was ever the case before. It’s only natural that we are having trouble with debt.”

^5a
Not me, but only because I wrote this book. With two kids and a wife, I completed my will within a few days of writing this sentence.

^5b
Abraham Lincoln: “The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day.”

Martin Luther King: “How soon not now, becomes never.”

^5c
In his own words: “And when Thou didst on all sides show me that what Thou said was true, I, though convinced of its truth, only repeated my dull and drowsy words, 'Right away, one minute, leave me but a little.' But 'right away' wasn’t ever right now, and my 'little while' went on for a long while . . .”

^5d
For another example, see St. Gabriel Possenti, who consistently swore whenever he became seriously ill that he would enter a religious order, only to have his resolve disappear when he healed. It took several bouts of illness before he kept his word, whereupon he contracted tuberculosis and died a few years later.

^5e
Such as Johnathan Edwards' eighteenth-century classic Procrastination, or The Sin and Folly of Depending on Future Time. Similarly, you have Reverend Edward Irving’s, “Procrastination is the kidnapper of souls and the recruiting-officer of hell;” and Reverend Aughey’s, “Procrastination has populated hell. All the doomed and damned from Christian lands are victims of this pernicious and destructive wile of the devil. It is foolish to procrastinate.”

^6a
Group-level procrastination is actually common enough to receive an official name; many business academics call it punctuated equilibrium.

^6b
These Defined Contribution plans are usually supported by the government and go by a variety of names, depending on the country you live in. For example, Americans have their 401(k)s, while Canadians have RRSPs. The UK has Pension Provisions, while France has Special Retirement Plans.

^6c
Furthermore, the amount put aside doesn’t rely upon their present wages but draws solely on the extra money gained from assumed future salary raises. This is a nifty ploy, based on the “wage illusion.” Wage increases typically keep salaries level with inflation, so you aren’t really any richer. Still, a raise often feels like “extra money,” instead of drawing on exactly what you are making now.

^7a
Sports teams constantly struggle against this trend, as it is natural to feel that last year’s victory ensures the next season’s success. As Bill Russell, winner of the NBA’s most valuable player award five times over, notes, “It’s much harder to keep a championship than to win one . . . there’s a temptation to believe that the last championship will somehow win the next one automatically.”

^7b
We could also cite the International Farm Youth Exchange or 4-H clubs (i.e., Head, Heart, Hands, and Health). With a similar slogan of “learn by doing,” they also aid in youth development. Having branched out considerably from their agricultural beginnings, they actively prepare students to excel across a variety of specialties, especially the sciences. Ask any alumni of any 4-H club what they thought of it; overwhelmingly they will testify that it was a major contribution to their self-confidence.

^7c
Sigmund Freud much earlier drew a similar conclusion. Fantasy is primarily a process whereby we form an image of our desire and receive gratification from it alone. This is much like addiction to Internet pornography, where pixels take the place of people.

^7d
Little of this is new. Benjamin Franklin wrote about the need for hard work in The Way to Wealth, over 150 years before Wallace Wattles' The Science of Getting Rich, the book that inspired The Secret. Even if you adopt the premise that magical thinking works, it is traditionally thought to operate contrary to the way professed by The Secret. Magnets actually attract their counter, that is positive attracts negative. Consequently, boasting about or predicting a positive result means it is less likely to come true; we jinx the outcome by tempting fate. It is why we knock on or touch wood after reporting good luck or health, in an effort to avoid the curse and allow the good luck to continue.

^7e
This is from William James' 1890 textbook, Principles of Psychology. James is actually summarizing a recommendation made four years earlier by Alexander Bain: “It is necessary, above all things, never to lose a battle. Every gain on the wrong side undoes the effect of many conquests on the right.” For that matter, what James considers the second greatest Victorian maxim is also relevant: “Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make.

^8a
For those who have seen the movie, “Meow.”

^8b
Oops! Make approach goals!

^8c
Which they start feasting on first through the anus. It makes for a nice bedtime story.

^8d
As Sir Peter Ustinov concluded, “Contrary to popular belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best; they are merely the people who got there first.”

^8e
Go to: http://online.onetcenter.org/find/descriptor/browse/Interests/. If you check it out, look up my profession, Industrial-Organizational Psychologist. You will see that in addition to researching motivation, we also counsel workers about their careers.

^8f
One suggestion is Career Vision, which focuses on both job success and satisfaction: http://www.careervision.org/

^8g
For example, Douglas Adams, the bestselling author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, had a legendary ability to avoid writing. As he quipped: “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

^9a
Another great example is from Tony Wilson in the movie 24 Hour Party People. Tony was a Manchester music mogul and aficionado of punk rock. Despite his success, he never retained much money. His explanation is pure precommitment: “I have protected myself from ever having to sell out by having nothing to sell out.”

^9b
Gastric surgery or stomach stapling is a more drastic form of satiation precommitment in that it reduces the amount of food needed to feel sufficiently suffonsified. That there is a non-negligible chance of dying during the procedure emphasizes the desperate measures people are willing to undertake to combat their desires.

^9c
Do not withhold yourselves from each other unless you agree to do so just for a set time, in order to devote yourselves to prayer. Then you should come together again so that Satan does not tempt you through your lack of self-control.” (1 Corinthians 7:5)

^9d
Or, in Deacon’s own words, chimps need the assistance of symbolic representation, for without it “being completely focused on what they want, they seem unable to stand back from the situation, so to speak, and subjugate their desire to the pragmatic context.”

^9e
At least a month. See chapter 5.

^9f
Here are two national associations: http://www.napo.net/about_napo/; http://www.organizersincanada.com/.

^10a
More or less. I don’t want to spoil his plot.

^10b
Aside from being referenced in dozens of college textbooks, the Procrastination Equation is also used during managerial training programs. For example, the company Intulogy bases motivational training for managers around the Procrastination Equation and it works. As one of their clients testifies, “When you first told me that you wanted to introduce yet another motivation theory, I thought it was a big waste of my time. Yet, it worked in class. Then, I spent all summer thinking about the theory. I have realized how much it applies to everything in life. It’s incredibly powerful.”

^10c
As psychologists Walter Mischel and Ozlem Ayduk wrote: “An excess of will can certainly be as self-defeating as its absence. Postponing gratification can be an unwise and even stifling joyless choice, but unless people develop the competencies to sustain delay and continue to exercise their will when they want and need to do so, the choice itself is lost.”