Filled with charm, tongue-in-cheek wit, and the insights of a lifelong introspective dawdler, The Art of Procrastination is a philosophical self-help program for every reader who suffers the pangs of being a procrastinator.
John Perry celebrates this nearly universal character flaw by pointing out how often procrastinators are, paradoxically, doers. They may not be accomplishing everything on their to-do lists, but that doesn’t make them slackers. It just indicates a need to rethink the to-do list. He also introduces the philosophical notion of akrasia (the mystery of why we often choose to act against our better judgement), examines the torturous relationship between procrastination and perfectionism, and shows how to give yourself permission to do an imperfect but, in fact, perfectly good job.
These are strategies—task triage, horizontal organization. Underlying causes—right-parenthesis deficit disorder. Anecdotes and ideas. But above all, an attitude of acceptance. Pat yourself on the back for what you manage to get done—but don’t stop enjoying that time you waste, too. Who knows where daydreams will lead?
Filled with charm, tongue-in-cheek wit, and the insights of a lifelong introspective dawdler, The Art of Procrastination is a philosophical self-help program for every reader who suffers the pangs of being a procrastinator.
John Perry celebrates this nearly universal character flaw by pointing out how often procrastinators are, paradoxically, doers. They may not be accomplishing everything on their to-do lists, but that doesn’t make them slackers. It just indicates a need to rethink the to-do list. He also introduces the philosophical notion of akrasia (the mystery of why we often choose to act against our better judgement), examines the torturous relationship between procrastination and perfectionism, and shows how to give yourself permission to do an imperfect but, in fact, perfectly good job.
These are strategies—task triage, horizontal organization. Underlying causes—right-parenthesis deficit disorder. Anecdotes and ideas. But above all, an attitude of acceptance. Pat yourself on the back for what you manage to get done—but don’t stop enjoying that time you waste, too. Who knows where daydreams will lead?
The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing
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The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing
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Overview
Filled with charm, tongue-in-cheek wit, and the insights of a lifelong introspective dawdler, The Art of Procrastination is a philosophical self-help program for every reader who suffers the pangs of being a procrastinator.
John Perry celebrates this nearly universal character flaw by pointing out how often procrastinators are, paradoxically, doers. They may not be accomplishing everything on their to-do lists, but that doesn’t make them slackers. It just indicates a need to rethink the to-do list. He also introduces the philosophical notion of akrasia (the mystery of why we often choose to act against our better judgement), examines the torturous relationship between procrastination and perfectionism, and shows how to give yourself permission to do an imperfect but, in fact, perfectly good job.
These are strategies—task triage, horizontal organization. Underlying causes—right-parenthesis deficit disorder. Anecdotes and ideas. But above all, an attitude of acceptance. Pat yourself on the back for what you manage to get done—but don’t stop enjoying that time you waste, too. Who knows where daydreams will lead?
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780761175001 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Workman Publishing Company |
| Publication date: | 08/28/2012 |
| Sold by: | Hachette Digital, Inc. |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 112 |
| File size: | 694 KB |
About the Author
He is the co-host of the nationally syndicated public radio program Philosophy Talk, and winner, in 2011, of an Ig Nobel Prize in Literature for the essay “Structured Procrastination.” He lives with his wife in Palo Alto, California.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Structured Procrastination
I have been intending to write this essay for months. Why am I finally doing it? Because I finally found some uncommitted time? Wrong. I have papers to grade, textbook orders to fill out, a National Science Foundation proposal to referee, and dissertation drafts to read. I am working on this essay as a way of not doing all of those things. This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they accomplish and the good use they make of time.
(Or at any rate I rediscovered it. In 1930 Robert Benchley wrote a column for the Chicago Tribune titled "How to Get Things Done," in which he stated that "anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment." As that quotation shows, Benchley saw the fundamental principle — and I assume other profound thinkers who were structured procrastinators like he was have noticed the same thing. Someday I'll do some further research.)
All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this negative trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, such as gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him to do it. The procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely, and important tasks, however, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.
Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact. In your mind, or perhaps even written down somewhere, you have a list of things you want to accomplish, ordered by importance. You might even call this your priority list. Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list. Doing these tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher up on the list. With this sort of appropriate task structure the procrastinator becomes a useful citizen. Indeed, the procrastinator can even acquire, as I have, a reputation for getting a lot done.
The most perfect situation for structured procrastination that I ever had was when my wife and I served as resident fellows in Soto House, a Stanford dormitory. In the evening, faced with papers to grade, lectures to prepare, committee work to be done, I would leave our cottage next to the dorm and go over to the student lounge and play Ping-Pong with the residents, or talk over things with them in their rooms, or just sit there and read the newspaper. I got a reputation for being a terrific resident fellow and one of the rare profs on campus who spent time with undergraduates and got to know them. What a setup — playing Ping-Pong as a way of not doing more important things and getting a reputation as Mr. Chips.
Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be, by definition, the most important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being.
At this point you may be asking, "How about the important tasks at the top of the list that one never does?" Admittedly, there is a potential problem here.
The trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list. The ideal sorts of things have two characteristics. First, they seem to have clear deadlines (but really don't). Second, they seem awfully important (but really aren't). Luckily, life abounds with such tasks. In universities the vast majority of tasks fall into this category, and I'm sure the same is true for most other large institutions. Take, for example, the item at the top of my list right now. This is finishing an essay for a volume on the philosophy of language. It was supposed to have been done eleven months ago. I have accomplished an enormous number of important things as a way of not working on it. A couple of months ago, bothered by guilt, I wrote a letter to the editor saying how sorry I was to be so late and expressing my good intentions to get to work. Writing the letter was, of course, a way of not working on the article. It turned out that I really wasn't much further behind schedule than anyone else. And how important is this article anyway? Not so important that at some point something that seems more important won't come along. Then I'll get to work on it.
Another example is book order forms. I write this in June. In October I will teach a class on epistemology. The book order forms are already overdue at the bookstore.
It is easy to take this as an important task with a pressing deadline. (For you nonprocrastinators, I will point out that deadlines really start to press a week or two after they pass.) I receive almost daily reminders from the department secretary; students sometimes ask me what we will be reading; and the unfilled order form sits right in the middle of my desk, right under the empty potato chip bag. This task is near the top of my list; it bothers me and motivates me to do other useful but superficially less important things. But, in fact, the bookstore is plenty busy with forms already filed by nonprocrastinators. If I send mine in by midsummer, things will be fine. I know that I will order well-known books from efficient publishers; I always do. And no doubt I will accept some other, apparently more important, task sometime between now and, say, the first of August, at which point my psyche will feel comfortable about filling out the order forms as a way of not doing this new task.
The observant reader may feel at this point that structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, because one is in effect constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. Exactly. One needs to be able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal deadlines, while making oneself feel that these tasks are important and urgent. This is not a problem, because virtually all procrastinators have excellent self-deception skills. And what could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the negative effects of another?
CHAPTER 2Procrastination and Perfectionism
Now that you have read the first chapter, if all is going according to plan, you realize that although you are a procrastinator, you are a structured procrastinator who gets a lot of valuable work done. So you have quit despising yourself. Still you may wonder if there is some way to become less of a procrastinator. In the next couple of chapters, I'll develop a few ideas that may apply to your situation and be helpful.
I received an interesting and insightful email from someone who had read about structured procrastination. This woman, whom I'll call Mistress Imelda, has her own leather fetish gear company and is writing a novel. She writes: I wanted to thank you for your article. My fiancé and I are both procrastinators. He sent your article to me and I could not believe how familiar I was with the things you wrote.
I have experienced so much guilt and emotional torture because of my inability to follow through with my many projects or rather, my choice not to because I know I am fully capable of following through and completing my projects but for some reason, I choose not to. I associated this with my fear of failure, knowing I will not face rejection and failure as much if I do not complete the project that will be so blatantly subjected to the intense scrutiny of my own personal judgment. Being a perfectionist, getting past my own scrutiny is one of the hardest issues I face.
I have a trilogy of novels unfinished, a small leather fetish gear company with orders not filled, a demo album to start and finish, a graphic novel, numerous paintings, and sketches to do. I manage to do things like sort and clean my paintbrushes, arrange my computer for space to store my music projects that are not started, sort out my chapters and do many, many summaries on my characters and plot because all of this makes me feel as if I am getting closer to actually working on those things. I have even tried to write to prospective bands and announce that I'm working on my demo, to somehow provide myself with a goal, an actual date to be finished. When they reply, excited for me and eager to hear the demo, it only further amplifies my fear of starting and of subsequent rejection.
I am so deeply a procrastinator that I refuse to commit to any other people on projects, knowing I will let them down. This keeps me limited to only disappointing myself with my constant deviations from the important goals I have, only to work on less important ones. Your article was so very similar to the way I do things. I was shocked, even dumbfounded, that any other person could possibly do this. It brought self-understanding to me in a way no one has previously done in the area of self-motivation.
Thank you so much.
Imelda
Mistress Imelda is an insightful procrastinator because she realizes that she is a perfectionist. But which comes first — the procrastination or the perfectionism? I think perfectionism leads to procrastination. I was slow to see the connection between the two, because I don't think of myself as a perfectionist. Many procrastinators do not realize that they are perfectionists, for the simple reason that we have never done anything perfectly or even nearly so. We have never been told that something we did was perfect, nor have we ourselves felt that anything we did was perfect. We think, quite mistakenly, that being a perfectionist implies, often or sometimes, or at least once, having completed some task to perfection. But this is a misunderstanding of the basic dynamic of perfectionism.
Perfectionism of the sort I am talking about is a matter of fantasy, not reality. Here's how it works in my case. Someone wants me to do something — perhaps a publisher wants me to referee a manuscript that has been submitted, which involves giving an opinion about whether it is worth publishing and, if it is, how it might be improved. I accept the task, probably because the publisher offers to pay me with a number of free books, which I wrongly suppose that if I owned I would get around to reading.
Immediately my fantasy life kicks in. I imagine myself writing the most wonderful referee's report. I imagine giving the manuscript an incredibly thorough read and writing an evaluation that helps the author to greatly improve his efforts. I imagine the publisher getting my writeup and saying, "Wow, this is the best referee report I have ever read." I imagine my report being completely accurate, completely fair, incredibly helpful to both author and publisher.
Why do I have such fantasies? God knows. Or maybe my shrink does. Perhaps my father did not praise me enough as a child. Or maybe he heaped praise on me when once, accidentally no doubt, I accomplished some task extremely well. Perhaps such fantasies are genetic. But this is, at most, just a practical multistep program, not an attempt at psychotherapy. (The first step is to read the previous chapter, "Structured Procrastination." This is the second step. If I figure out any more steps, they will be in subsequent chapters.) So we won't worry about why I, or you, have such fantasies. The point is that if you are a procrastinator, of the garden variety sort, something like this probably goes through your mind.
This is perfectionism in the relevant sense. It's not a matter of really ever doing anything that is perfect or that even comes close. It is a matter of using tasks you accept to feed your fantasy of doing things perfectly, or at any rate, extremely well.
How does the fantasy of perfection feed procrastination? Well, it's not so easy to do things perfectly. (At least I assume that it is not. Perhaps someday I'll do something perfectly, and then I'll know for sure.) Presumably one needs time. And the proper setting. Clearly, to referee this manuscript, I need to read it carefully. That will take quite a few hours. I want to go beyond the manuscript itself and read some of the material that the author cites, to make sure the author is accurate and fair in what he says about it. I've read book reviews by philosophers I admire, and they obviously do this. It's very impressive. I need to be over in the library to do that properly. Actually, in today's world, one doesn't need to be in the library. One can find a lot of this stuff on the Web. If one knows how. Unfortunately, I don't know how. I know that there is this thing called JSTOR that allows one to access lots of academic journals online. If you are working at Stanford you can access it through the library. But it would be nice to be able to access it at home. I may want to work late into the night on this referee job. To access JSTOR at home you need to set up something called a proxy server. I'd better figure out how to do that.
A few hours later I'm done setting up the proxy server. Most likely I am done because I have given up. Every time I think I have the thing set up, it doesn't work right, or my screen goes blank. But suppose instead that I am done because I have actually managed to make the proxy server work. One thing I will not have done is start on the referee job. I will have invested enough time to have actually given the book a quick read and to have formed an opinion of it, but I will not have done this or even gotten started. I will feel like a schmuck, and rightly so.
Then what happens? I go on to other things. Most likely, the manuscript slowly disappears under subsequent memos, mail, empty potato chip bags, piles of files, and other things that accumulate on my desk. (See the chapter on horizontal organization) Then, in about six weeks, I get an email from the publisher, asking when she can expect the report. Maybe, if she has dealt with me before, this email arrives a bit before I promised the report. If she hasn't, it arrives a few days after the deadline.
Now, finally, I snap into action. My fantasy structure changes. I no longer picture myself writing the world's best referee report ever. I imagine some woman back in the New York office of Oxford University Press. I picture her, empty-handed, going to the editorial meeting, where she promised to have an evaluation of the manuscript. "I'm sorry," she says to her boss. "I counted on this fellow from Stanford, but he didn't come through." "That's it," her boss says. "You're fired." "But I've got three small children, my husband is in the hospital, and the mortgage is overdue," she says. "I'm sorry," he replies. "I've got a business to run." I imagine meeting this woman; she gives me a withering stare. "You cost me my job," she says.
And then there is the author. Maybe whether or not he gets tenure turns on getting this book accepted. It's probably a great book, a masterpiece that has been sitting on my desk unread while the tenure decision lies in the balance. Perhaps someday the whole world of philosophy will know that this deserving person was denied tenure because John Perry sat on his manuscript — like the editors at the physics journals who turned down Einstein's early manuscripts. (I'm not sure that ever happened — I meant to look it up but haven't gotten around to it.)
At this point, I dig through the files, magazines, and unopened correspondence on my desk, and after a bit of panic — Have I lost the manuscript? Will I have to ask the publisher for another copy? Should I lie and say that I thought I mailed the manuscript back with the review, but it must have been in that briefcase the mugger took from me? — I find it. I take a few hours, read it, write a perfectly adequate report, and then send it off.
Now let's analyze what happened. First of all, let's note that because I am a structured procrastinator, I have used the referee report as a way of doing a lot of other things. For example, perhaps I set up that proxy server. A colleague says plaintively at some point, "I'd like to access JSTOR from home, but I don't have the proxy server set up." "Oh," I exclaim jauntily, "I set mine up a couple of weeks ago. Works great." "How did you ever find the time?" he asks admiringly. I don't reply, but look smug.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Art of Procrastination"
by .
Copyright © 2012 John Perry.
Excerpted by permission of Workman Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION The Paradox of Procrastination,
CHAPTER ONE Structured Procrastination,
CHAPTER TWO Procrastination and Perfectionism,
CHAPTER THREE To-Do Lists,
CHAPTER FOUR Get Rhythm,
CHAPTER FIVE The Computer and the Procrastinator,
CHAPTER SIX A Plea for the Horizontally Organized,
CHAPTER SEVEN Collaborating with the Enemy?,
CHAPTER EIGHT Fringe Benefits,
CHAPTER NINE Do Procrastinators Have to Be Annoying?,
CHAPTER TEN Deep Concluding Thoughts,
APPENDIX,
ABOUT THE AUTHOR,
What People are Saying About This
“I intend to write a rave about The Art of Procrastination just as soon as I’ve cleared my desk this afternoon—or at least by first thing tomorrow—because reading this straight-talking, badly needed book has changed my life.”
—Bruce McCall, writer and illustrator for The New Yorker
“A splendid way to avoid one’s work.”
—Ben Schott, author of Schott’s Original Miscellany
“Do not put off reading this charming guide to more effective procrastination. Dr. Perry is the Fabius Cunctator in our war against the Hannibal of the undone. Be gone, elephants of nagging duty.
—P. J. O’Rourke, author of Holidays in Hell
“Insightful, sensible, and amusing.”
—Harry G. Frankfurt, author of On Bullshit
“John Perry is the wittiest philosopher since Marx (Groucho), and he brings to this book a delightful combination of wisdom and humor.”
—Thomas Cathcart, coauthor of Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . .
“The Art of Procrastination is a gem—its practical wisdom as spot-on as its humor. Now that I’ve devoured this hilarious and insightful tome, I not only know that I’m a structured procrastinator, but I’ve also picked up some invaluable tips on how to fool myself into being more productive, which to put to use someday.”
—Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction
“What are you waiting for? Read this book!”
—Patricia Marx, author of Starting from Happy
“John Perry’s book is lively, funny, engaging and wise. And—fortunately for procrastinators—short. It’s just the thing for a moment or two away from the task at hand!”
—Timothy A. Pychyl, PhD, author of The Procrastinator’s Digest
“I intend to write a rave about The Art of Procrastination just as soon as I’ve cleared my desk this afternoon—or at least by first thing tomorrow—because reading this straight-talking, badly needed book has changed my life.”
—Bruce McCall, writer and illustrator for The New Yorker
“There are lessons both deep and funny to be found in our capacity to put things off, and Perry is the ideal guide—a writer of superlative wisdom and wit. Forget whatever you were supposed to do next, and read this book.”
—Mark Kingwell, PhD, coauthor of The Idler’s Glossary
“The Art of Procrastination rings startlingly true. Perry reconstructs the inner dialogue of the procrastinator with a droll, lighthearted style that has inspired me to try his strategies (alarm clocks, self-deceptions, and self-forgiveness).
—Patrick Byre, CEO, Overstock.com
“A splendid way to avoid one’s work.”
—Ben Schott, author of Schott’s Original Miscellany
“What are you waiting for? Read this book!”
—Patricia Marx, author of Starting from Happy
“The Art of Procrastination rings startlingly true. Perry reconstructs the inner dialogue of the procrastinator with a droll, lighthearted style that has inspired me to try his strategies (alarm clocks, self-deceptions, and self-forgiveness).
—Patrick Byre, CEO, Overstock.com
“Insightful, sensible, and amusing.”
—Harry G. Frankfurt, author of On Bullshit
“The Art of Procrastination is a gem—its practical wisdom as spot-on as its humor. Now that I’ve devoured this hilarious and insightful tome, I not only know that I’m a structured procrastinator, but I’ve also picked up some invaluable tips on how to fool myself into being more productive, which to put to use someday.”
—Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction
“John Perry is the wittiest philosopher since Marx (Groucho), and he brings to this book a delightful combination of wisdom and humor.”
—Thomas Cathcart, coauthor of Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . .
“John Perry’s book is lively, funny, engaging and wise. And—fortunately for procrastinators—short. It’s just the thing for a moment or two away from the task at hand!”
—Timothy A. Pychyl, PhD, author of The Procrastinator’s Digest
“There are lessons both deep and funny to be found in our capacity to put things off, and Perry is the ideal guide—a writer of superlative wisdom and wit. Forget whatever you were supposed to do next, and read this book.”
—Mark Kingwell, PhD, coauthor of The Idler’s Glossary