2010-07-20 Black windup alarm clock face by Sun Ladder – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Annotated Links
Better Get to Work: Procrastination May Harm Heart Health New evidence suggests that chronic procrastinators may be more vulnerable to serious health conditions like cardiovascular disease and hypertension. From the Association for Psychological Science, May 5, 2015.
Getting Over Procrastination Piers Steel, a researcher who’s specialty is procrastination, explains how procrastination has been a problem since recorded time leading to lessened well-being, worse health, and lower salaries. So, why do we do it and how can we stop it? Steel shares some of his research findings in this piece by Maria Konnikova for The New Yorker, July 22, 2014.
How to Stop Procrastinating in 2 Easy Steps Describes the work of Katy Milkman on temptation bundling in which behaviors we should do but procrastinate on are bundled with activities we’re tempted to do. Together, people are better able to exert their self-control to do what must be done and procrastinate less.
Procrastination The Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada maintains this page full of references and resources for understanding — and even managing — procrastination. In addition, Timothy A. Pychyl maintains the Don’t Delay procrastination blog at Psychology Today in which he discusses current personality research and the iProcrastinate podcasts discussing why we procrastinate and what we can do about it.
Procrastination and Science What do the Dalai Lama, Victor Hugo, St. Augstine and Margaret Atwood have in common? They are all procrastinators according to researchers Piers Steel, Rosa Hendijani and Chris Morin of the University of Calgary. They put together this web page to study procrastination and to link it to other aspects of personality. Includes links to the downside and the upside of procrastination, famous procrastinators, quotes about procrastination, personality tests, online polls, strategies to counter procrastination, and a summary of their latest research. Posted August 2014.
Researchers Discovered a Psychological Trick That Will Help You Stop Procrastinating Psychologists have figured out a ridiculously easy trick to combat your tendency to put things off: Break them up into smaller pieces. The idea is that you’ll get a thrill out of checking those individual items off your to-do list and, before you know it, you’ll have completed the whole project. From Business Insider, July 8, 2015.
Sometimes Early Birds Are Too Early From the article: Since the advent of the deadline, procrastinators have suffered society’s barbs for putting off until later what needs doing now. But it turns out that many people appear to be finishing things sooner than they need to get them done. They are precrastinators, researchers say. From The New York Times, July 19, 2014.
Assignments, Exercises, and Activities
Electronic Texts
Procrastination Scale From Lay, C. (1986). At last, my research article on procrastination. Journal of Research in Personality, 20, 474-495. (Opens in PDF format).
Examples and Illustrations
Lecture Notes
Slide Presentations
Tests, Measures, and Scales
Procrastination Scale From Lay, C. (1986). At last, my research article on procrastination. Journal of Research in Personality, 20, 474-495. (Opens in PDF format).
Procrastination Survey You can sign up here to take the procrastination survey of researchers Piers Steel, Rosa Hendijani and Chris Morin of the University of Calgary and to participate in their ongoing research on procrastination.
Multimedia Resources
Tales Of Mere Existence: Procrastination Cartoonist Lev Yilmaz describes how his stuff (doesn’t) gets done in this entertaining video Tales Of Mere Existence: Procrastination, to which many of us can relate.