Last night, I watched this Ted Talk by Tim Urban on procrastination. The video was engaging and thought provoking, but I did not think I would write about it because it did not address how to stop procrastinating, and his video did not fit into how I envisioned the topics of this blog to be. Perhaps, I was wrong.
You see, I woke up thinking about the video, and areas of my life where I need to stop procrastinating. My understanding of procrastination has changed, and for this reason I think it is worth sharing this video.
Before continuing, it is worth pointing out that Tim Urban is an engaging speaker. He is a writer and has a blog Wait but Why.
Urban describes being a student who typically procrastinated. He studied political science/government in college, which required him to write many papers. He did this in typical procrastinator style, writing his papers the night before they were due.
When he was in 5th year university, he was to write a 90 page senior thesis. Clearly, this is not a task to be done the night before. Urban had good intentions and was going to work on the paper throughout the year; however, procrastination gets the better of him, and he ends up writing the paper in three days. This did not work out so well for Urban, but he does not really go into in detail in the video.
He explains that he had an hypothesis that the world was broken up into two types of people: procrastinators and non-procrastinators. Urban thought that the brains of each type of person were different.
He then goes on to describe how a procrastinator fails to deal well with deadlines. Basically, Urban talks about the Instant Gratification Monkey that lurks inside the procrastinator's brain. If it is time to something difficult that involves work, enter the Instant Gratification Monkey who takes the procrastinator to "The Dark Playground."
The playground is dark because the procrastinator really should not be there. As a non-procrastinator, I don't know this place...at least, when it comes do deadlines.
So the procrastinator hangs out in the playground, and the deadline fast approaches, so the watchful mind sends in the Panic Monster, according to Urban. All of the sudden, the procrastinator is thrown into action, trying to meet the deadline.
As for the Panic Monster, I sort of know this character, and he terrifies me. I don't want any problems with this guy, which is why I just don't procrastinate or so I thought.
After Urban mapped out what more or less goes on inside a procrastinator's mind, he worked on writing his blog (the link is above). People loved it, and something resonated with them when they saw it, so they would write Urban, who appears to have a good sense of humour, and to have made peace with procrastination around deadlines.
He read the messages, and noted that many of the people challenged with problems related to procrastination were sad, and that their problems with procrastination had profoundly impacted their lives.
At this point, Urban has an epiphany. He concludes that there are two types of procrastination. There is the first time which has to do with set deadlines, and the other kind where the deadlines are mirky and not set.
Maybe, you know of someone who is meaning to...and whatever they are meaning to do is important, but they just keep putting if off, because this is what we do when we procrastinate. Let's say that person has a heart condition, and knows they should go to the doctor. Furthermore, let's say this person does not go to the doctor....well, we all know where this could end.
My daily problems with procrastination at this point in my life are not as serious as the one above, but I still recognize that there are things that I avoid because they are difficult and unpleasant.
Urban concludes that we are all procrastinators, and I would have to agree.
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