Ok first of all forget all the jokes about not quite getting around to reading this book! I have and it is worth the effort.
…you know they have to be done – that report, starting that project, replying to those emails etc. However you can’t quite get around to them. At least not until they have become an imminent and perhaps even a potentially career threatening crisis! That is procrastination, and this book sets out to describe why we are all prone to this weakness and ultimately how to understand and deal with it.
Piers Steel is an academic with a 10 years track record in researching procrastination and its impact. In this book he describes why procrastination is built into our genetic make-up. In evolutionary terms we are programmed to live in the now and undertaking things which don’t give instant gratification are more difficult for us. So starting a project which will not be complete for some time cannot compete with the immediate gratification of chatting to a colleague or checking Facebook!
Steel’s “equation” which he has produced after much research and meta-analysis describes the factors which tend to determine our tendency to procrastinate. He has determined that our motivation to act is dependent on the extent we can expect a return on our actions and how much we value this return. However this is tendency to act is affected by our personal levels of impulsiveness and how far in the future our outputs are required.
The body of the book concentrates on how our modern lives are full of procrastination-inducing distractions, the personal price we pay for this, and the overall economic cost of putting things off. However ultimately he considers the irrationallity of putting things off is a tendency not necessarily an inevitability. If we can understand and accept our internal state of affairs we can reconcile our evolutionary humanity with the need to plan and act now for future reward.
If you do have a problem with procrastination, this is probably about the best of the current crop of books on the subject and is recommended as a good read anyway.
You’ll find it on Amazon here:
The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done
..eh just don’t put off reading it!
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