The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done

by Piers Steel

Overview

"The Procrastination Equation will teach you how to bust the excuses that are preventing you from doing your best work and living your best life….So don't put it off any longer. Read this book. Today."
 —Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind

"Illuminating….Piers Steel shows us the secrets of procrastination, how it affects us and how we will, one day, be able to prevail."
—Dan Ariely, author of The Upside of Irrationality and Predictably Irrational

Using a mix of psychology, evolutionary biology, self-help, and more than a decade of research, Dr. Piers Steel, the world's foremost authority on procrastination, offers a tried and true method helping us to identify, understand, and break free of our self-destructive bad habits and create more positive lives for ourselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062035257
Publisher:	HarperCollins e-books
Publication date:	04/16/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	322
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Piers Steel, PhD, one of the world's foremost researchers and speakers on the science of motivation and procrastination, is the winner of the Killam Emerging Research Leader Award. Dr. Steel's research has appeared in numerous outlets around the world, ranging from Psychology Today and New Scientist to Good Housekeeping and The New Yorker. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, with his wife and two sons.

Editorial Reviews

A useful, eye-opening book.

Booklist

I put off writing this blurb ‘til the last minute. I thought it was because I was too busy but after reading The Procrastination Equation, I know the real reasons. Piers Steel will help you tackle the goals . . . that always seemed . . . out of reach.

Richard Florida

The Procrastination Equation will teach you how to bust the excuses that are preventing you from doing your best work and living your best life. . . . So don’t put it off any longer. Read this book. Today.

Daniel H. Pink

Procrastination is the saffron spice of human behavior, where even small amounts of this tendency can shatter the best of intentions. In this illuminating book Piers Steel shows us the secrets of procrastination, how it affects us and how we will, one day, be able to prevail.

Dan Ariely

Procrastinating just makes unpleasant tasks worse, so why is it so hard for us to resist dithering and delay? The Procrastination Equation is crammed with surprising insights about procrastination and human nature — as well as concrete, helpful solutions for fighting procrastination.

Gretchen Rubin

The Procrastination Equation is this season’s must-read self-help book. In addition to offering useful strategies to fight a common problem, it’s a fascinating read.

Montreal Gazette

The Procrastination Equation is this season’s must-read self-help book. In addition to offering useful strategies to fight a common problem, it’s a fascinating read.

Montreal Gazette

An upbeat, motivational guide to procrastination.

Steel (Haskayne School of Business, Univ. of Calgary), an industrial-organizational psychologist whose doctoral thesis examined procrastination, explains it all: what it is, why people do it, what the results of such behavior are and what do to about it. Defined here as irrational delay, procrastination is a measurable trait, and the author provides simple tests so that readers can determine their type of procrastination and how they compare with others. Steel introduces three characters, dubbed Eddie, Valerie and Tom, whose stories illustrate the motivational elements that make up the "procrastination equation": Expectancy x Value / Impulsiveness x Delay = Motivation. Simply put, the equation means that the motivation to perform a particular task declines when the expectancy or value of a task's reward declines or when there is an increase in impulsivity or in the delay of the task's reward. Graphs and charts demonstrate how these elements operate and what Steel's research on procrastination has revealed. Individual chapters focus on each of these equation's elements and give pointers on how to deal with them. Following the self-help sections, Eddie, Valerie and Tom return in stories that illustrate how they changed their behavior and their lives by applying the recommended tactics. Procrastination, writes the author, is widespread because it is wired into the human brain, occurring when the impulsive limbic system overrules the more rational prefrontal cortex, and he offers a capsule history of procrastination from the introduction of agriculture to the industrial revolution. Today, he writes, computers and television are the top two distractions that fuel procrastination, but, in his view, easily built and readily implemented technological devices could provide a solution to our weak wills in these areas of temptation.

Everything you ever wanted to know about procrastination but never got around to reading.

Kirkus Reviews