Addicted to Procrastination

Since I’ve gotten to college I’ve taken my procrastination to next level. Because my earliest class starts at 11:00 am I have developed a mind set that I don’t need to get my work done the night before and can always wake up early to  get everything done. While this has technically worked so far, I hate the feeling that I get–without fail–every morning as I am rushing to finish all my work. And even though I remember this tense feeling, I continue to bring it upon myself. My friends and especially parents have never bought the idea that “I really just cant help it.”

After reading this New Yorker article, “Later” by James Surowiecki, I was relieved to learn that I’m not alone. In the article Suroweicki explains that procrastination is not only part of human impulse, but is also not as easy to fix as some might think.

Akerlof, who became one of the central figures in behavioral economics, came to the realization that procrastination might be more than just a bad habit. He argued that it revealed something important about the limits of rational thinking and that it could teach useful lessons about phenomena as diverse as substance abuse and savings habits.

I agree with Akerlof: procrastination is an addiction. You know what it does to you and what the outcome will be, but you simply cannot bring yourself to stop. The concept of “later” allows us to almost block the task out of our minds or rationalize the prolonging of the task until it is too late. Or almost too late.

–Lauren Opatowski