Aaron Swartz commented on The Procrastination Paradox yesterday. With some amusing links, he also asks the big question: what’s the root cause? He comes up with one answer:
There’s only one explanation that makes sense: it’s not anything intrinsic to the task, but the outside importance of the task that makes us procrastinate. But what possible reason could we have for putting off tasks that are important? It seems like a totally bizarre thing for our brains to do.
Aaron also asks for other ideas.
I have two ideas on the topic, and some would say I’m an expert. 😉
The first thought is that we can think faster than we can act. So, you can think through the raw outline of what needs to be done, and in what order, and you know how long it will take (or think it will take), and making the commitment to spending that time on that one task, and nothing else, is daunting.
The second motive behind procrastination is perfectionism, or, perhaps more accurately, the fear of screwing up. It’s easy to do something right in your head (or so we all like to believe), but the translation between thought and deed is rarely (never?) 100% accurate. Something is always lost in translation, so to protect yourself from embarrassment, it’s easier to avoid the comparison between thought and deed.
I have been notorious for this kind of delay, mostly in school, but I’m not going to pretend I’ve ‘recovered’ from these practices yet. I’ll be interested to see what other comments are sparked by Aaron’s post.