I am reminded of the procrastinator's creed: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. I think procrastination is a form of rebellion---without a cause. Most of us, regardless of how rational, have a few loose screws; a few frayed circuits. This is not remarkable when we consider the light-speed pace of twenty-first century living. I have found solace in procrastination since retiring from a job where things which had to be done yesterday could have all waited until next week. A job where incompetence was rewarded while capable workers were denigrated and leadership was predicated upon political loyalty.
我们从不同的人那里以不同的方式学习拖延症。起初，我们质疑它的效用。但是，当我们更多地了解为什么使用它时，我们就会明白它是一种应对机制，可以让我们忙乱的生活变得更容易忍受。当然，我们按时支付账单，按时吃药(前提是我们知道什么对我们有好处)，但如果有些事情可以等到明天——或更久——我们就会利用这个选择。我在喝我唯一的一罐拉巴特蓝。我可以再去拿点。但这可以等一等。

我不确定我是否对你的选择感兴趣。拖延，推迟做一项活动，只是一种可能的关系——谢天谢地，你没有把拖延描绘成某种专业术语，从而停止了对它的真实性的考虑。

Isaac Neutron: The state of a job where its tasks can literally wait for a week or more. that's actually one of the more adept things i've heard in a while. god forbid one actually has a relation with the relatedness of the possible task of the whole state of affairs.

所以关于拖延症，你唯一愿意谈的就是如何摆脱它?你嘲笑我那封关于人类不适的邮件，认为这是一个更恰当的视角来看待这个问题?你们都很满足于用纯粹的功利主义术语来描述人类的状况，生活是一组“目标”，比如“移动沙袋”。我觉得自己在听沙袋间的对话，不为所动。
My unabridged email to you read as follows...
The problem with adopting economics and logic as the pole star of a philosophy is that you become indistinguishable from corporate motivational speakers. You all sound like a 1-800 motivational advertisement. What of resistance? What of fighting off coercion? Hippies used to speak of this, now they?re all self-important baby boomer careerists. What better example of how impoverished economic and logical pragmatism have become as philosophies of ethics. Again? what of resistance, what of sabotaging the banks!
我向你挑战，不要把理性=逻辑或快乐=良好作为每个行为的基础这一可预测的谬误。如果居住在一个纯粹的人类自由意志的状态呢?事实上，萎靡不振是人类的状况。艺术和冥想恰恰表达了这一点。
Please speak instead of the long history of human free will as expressed through, for example, the flaneurs of Oscar Wilde?s day who would walk turtles on leashes as an expression of liberation from utilitarian philosophy.
James Decker
http://Resipiscent.com
San Francisco, CA
====follow up===
You did not refute or speak to my comment. You return as quickly as possible to utilitarianism and talk of ?rewards.? Economics is not philosophy. Again, I challenge you to speak of art, meditation and RESISTANCE as the height of human possibility. NOT careerism and ?accomplishments? such as you trade in at the university.
Snoring over here.
James Decker

I did not find the this piece very convincing. There is nothing irrational about procrastinating and the mathematical analogy is simply flawed. When faced with a decision, we all have choices. Some of these choice may actually provide more pleasure or enjoyment than the "rational"choice. Hence, procrastinating can certainly add to on'e pleasure.

"HOW DO WE FEEL ABOUT OURSELVES WHEN..."
作为pointed out in the show, this goes back to ideas about the self (addressed in last week's show).
我认为，除了哲学的根本和不可回答的问题，“我们”是什么或谁(哲学的另一个根本和不可回答的问题是“除了人的意识之外，还有别的东西吗”)，处理关于人对自己的“感觉”的陈述，并不是真正在做哲学。“感觉者”和“感觉者”的二重性，因为它们都是同一个人，所以会引发两层猜测，而这两层猜测都反对使用理性作为一种调查工具。一旦理性不可用，我们只能推测因果关系而不使用我们的理性力量，我们就只能成为观察者，或者可能成为诗人(如果我们有一些非常特殊的语言技能)。哲学不仅仅是观察;它是推理对思想的应用。
The idea of self-deception is like this. There really is no such thing, rationally, as knowing something, and then thinking about one's self while BELIEVING what one knows isn't true.

我将很快开始讨论这个问题。出乎意料的是，就在昨天的演出结束几个小时后，我就因疼痛被紧急送往医院。结果是肾结石(我的跟腱完全撕裂了，比昨天那个小“结石”造成的疼痛还轻——太神奇了)。无论如何，在我回来之前，在拖延症网站上有很多免费的信息。ca -今天心理学的免费博客(不要拖延)，iTunes上的免费播客(i拖延播客)，免费漫画(及时娱乐)和大量的信息和研究。
cheers for now,
tim

I think I'll wait and write my comments tomorrow.
Good Day,
=

Do you have the names of the songs that were played on the JANUARY 28, 2011 Procrastination show? I heard one, that I really liked. Thanks, Sam

This is more or less a test---just to see if my comment gets into the system (last attempt failed). It is interesting to me that this post on procrastination evoked so many opinions. I'll try to say more if this passes muster.

Well, so far, so good---my test comment seemed to get in. As I tried to say a day ago, procrastination seems, on first blush, fairly innocuous. Until it affects (or causes) life-or-death decisions. I used two examples: one, the executive pardon order by a governor which is transmitted and received too late to stay a death sentence; and two, the collapse of the Silver Bridge (in the 1970s or there abouts)---my uncle could have died in that tragedy, but did not BECAUSE of procrastination.Long story, so trust me, OK?
Several diametric forces appear to be at work in such instances. One is Jung's SYNCHRONICITY, or meaningful chance. Another is likely to be N.N. Taleb's extension of the Jungian thesis---something he calls Black Swans: numerous combinations of probabilities which are IMPROBABLE, but just happen anyway. If you get in the way, sorry about that.
Anyway, my intuition is this: the commenters to this post are at least as smart as their comments indicate. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude they have at least considered the more serious aspects of something we might otherwise view as innocuous. Just sayin'...

事实上，我对拖延症有一个更具体的看法，我在一篇反对家长制的文章中提出了类似的论点。我的观点是，拖延症在更广泛的意义上对我们来说是理性的。
当我们说拖延是非理性的时候，我们的意思是它是相对于某个“最佳”目标的愤怒，但这真的是我们的“最佳”目标吗?如果我认为最好是呆在家里写一篇文章，而不是和朋友们出去玩，从理性上讲，出于社交考虑，我这样做或许是最好的。因此，这就变成了两种相互竞争的理论。清洁的例子可以是你个人对抗来自机构压力的一个例子。因此，拖延就是抵抗。

我明白你的意思了，你的想法很好，我对拖延症还有另一个想法…谢谢你的分享。

就像过去和现在的许多研究人员和学者一样，你们大错特错了。你是在试图解释拖延症还是想快速轻松地摆脱它?
如果你只是想解释拖延症，那么你所做的就是在你的尝试中证明它。
对拖延症唯一有意义的讨论，是对以下问题提供了一个清晰而实际的答案:我如何停止拖延?这是你的读者在这个话题上会问的最重要的问题。You know, the readers who procrastinate on the academic writing tasks that define their profession?
The most effective way to stop procrastinating is also the most effective way to stop being clinically depressed or to stop having the diagnosis of autism. It's called applied behavior analysis. It's all about harnessing and transferring motivation from high probability behaviors to low probability behaviors, it's a precise science that's as simple as it is counterintuitive.
Just like there's a fat practical distinction between explanation and cure when comparing psychoanalytic vs cognitive behavioral treatment outcome and follow up studies, there's a fat distinction between explaining procrastination and curing it. The alternative is rationally and empirically indefensible.