Roman Gelperin (Author) - Addiction, Procrastination, and Laziness: A Proactive Guide to the Psychology of Motivation

It has been six weekssince Jim was assigned an eight-page paper for his American Literature class.He had thought about it frequently over the elapsedtime. He concluded that it would take no more than ten total hours to completeit. He had multiple times made a resolution to begin the paper, planning to getit out of the way early. He shunned those resolutions over and over again, andhasnt as much as written a word of it. Only now, in the dead of night, exactlyten hours before it is due, Jim begins feverishly writing and cobbling wordstogether. Every minute of the next ten hours Jim spends intensely working,taking no breaks to rest, watch television, or play videogames, as he isusually prone to doing. He feels stressed, irritated, exhausted, but in thecourse of those ten hours he manages to complete the paper and hands it inright on time.

Now Jim feels elated. He feels a huge relief, agrand weight lifted off his shoulders, he is ecstatic, he no longer feels tired despite staying up the extra ten hours to write thepaper. He thinks he can tackle anything, overcome any hurdle. Never again, hethinks, from now on I will never leave an assignment to the last minute andhave to spend such an excruciating time rushing to complete it. But, ofcourse, Jim is doomed to find himself repeating this process over and overagain; procrastinating for days, and weeks, and months before beginning hisassignments; and always waiting until the very last minute before hisassignment is due, and when stalling any longer would cause him to flunk it.

Without a doubt this is an extremely commonscenario, one which many of us have experienced at one time or another, if notperpetually so. So why does it happen? Why do we waste countless hours onunproductive, frivolous activities, when we know theres work to be done? Whycant so many of us resist the urge to procrastinate? What separates those ofus who do, from those who diligently complete all their work early or in atimely fashion? Why cant we force ourselves to work, even though we know itisnt worth the stress and anxiety that we will experience in rushing to do itat the last second? And, of course, the work itself then suffers on top ofthat. Many will conclude that they just have no willpower. And yet, in thosefinal moments right before the assignment is due, the willpower we call up to do it is nothing short of incredible. At those timeswe may feel that if only we could harness that motivation, we would be capableof anything. But no one would wish onto themselves the constant, feverishpressure of continuously having to complete a task under this type of harddeadline. And those whose job puts them in these kinds of conditions most oftengreatly resent it. There can, of course, be many negative physical andpsychological side-effects as well.

It is, however, possible to have the best of bothworlds: to be productive and proactive without the stress and strain that comeswith having to meet a deadline. And it has little to do with willpower;as we will soon see, willpower is only a skittish and insignificant factor. Whatit requires is an understanding of motivation. But lets leave this issuehanging for now and take in a few more examples.