Procrastination Is Hard To Change

September 10, 2012

Interview with John Perry, author of the book The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

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Mike Carruthers:
It’s human nature for a lot of people to procrastinate.

John Perry:
But some people don’t procrastinate and more power to them, they’re good to work with, they accomplish a lot and I wish I could be more like them but I’m not.
 

John Perry, author of the book The Art of Procrastination ...

There are people that just think procrastination is a horrible fault - mostly procrastinators themselves who are very hard on themselves or non-procrastinators who are really annoyed with people who don’t work the same way they work. But I don’t think the non-procrastinators have any real complaint if the person does get the thing done and they get it done more or less by the deadline – what business is it of theirs?

For procrastinators to stop procrastinating is incredibly difficult. And John thinks it may be better to just accept it but procrastinate well.

The most annoying thing a procrastinator can do is deny that he’s a procrastinator and say that he just has a good sense of what’s important. Well that’s baloney that’s rationalization, admit that you’re a procrastinator but don’t make whatever you did in the meantime don’t give it so much self-importance that you think it actually justifies it.

The fact is that most procrastinators do get the job done, eventually.

Well look at Mark Twain he said, “Never do tomorrow what you can put off until the day after tomorrow.” But you probably (on your bookshelf) you’ve got the collected works of Mark Twain it’s 30 volumes or something like that.