A theory of procrastination:
“… the person who makes plans and the person who fails to carry them out are not really the same person: they’re different parts of what the game theorist Thomas Schelling called ‘the divided self.’ Schelling proposes that we think of ourselves not as unified selves but as different beings, jostling, contending, and bargaining for control.… The idea of the divided self, though discomfiting to some, can be liberating in practical terms, because it encourages you to stop thinking about procrastination as something you can beat by just trying harder. Instead, we should rely on what Joseph Heath and Joel Anderson, in their essay in The Thief of Time, call ‘the extended will’ — external tools and techniques to help the parts of our selves that want to work. A classic illustration of the extended will at work is Ulysses’ decision to have his men bind him to the mast of his ship. Ulysses knows that when he hears the Sirens he will be too weak to resist steering the ship onto the rocks in pursuit of them, so he has his men bind him, thereby forcing him to adhere to his long-term aims.”
Anybody got a mast I can borrow for the next couple of weeks?
Ah, throw it all to the wind! Where would we be without our weaknesses?
Lito, in my more optimistic moments, I feel the same way. I even half-convince myself that my procrastinating is a virtue — that it is related to creativity somehow, a necessary complement to writing ability, a component of the creative personality type, etc. Then a deadline looms, and I can’t be so cavalier anymore.
Deadlines are, of course, the killers of procrastination. They should be banned.
Ha!