If Google is to be believed, Mark Twain once said: “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done the day after tomorrow just as well.” Ah, a fellow procrastinator. Charles Dickens, meanwhile, did not fall into this trap. “My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today,” he said (in what I can only assume was a smug tone of voice). “Procrastination is the thief of time.” And, the man had a point.
WHAT IS PROCRASTINATION?
According to Dr Timothy Pychyl, who studies the psychology behind procrastination, the earliest documented reference to it comes from a sermon written back in 1682. (Probably late one night, the day before it was due.) I can also give you some vague statistics with no discernible origin that I found online: 20% of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators, and college and university seem to be settings that really breed procrastination − with up to 70% of students identifying themselves as procrastinators. Procrastination is typically defined as “the action of delaying or postponing something”. However, writer Tim Urban has a slightly different interpretation of the word. He defines it as “the action of ruining your own life for no apparent reason”. During his TED talk titled Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator, he
