Last Week's Procrastination Post

Slate devoted a whole issue to procrastination. Everybody inveighs against it, and Emily Yoffe hauled out some non procrastinating expert to claim that it's just a bad habit with no basis in biology. I will believe that when I believe the same thing about sleep and eating.

Procrastination is the brain's way of protesting against spending too much time doing stupid and boring things like processing paperwork, writing reports, and mowing the lawn. None of those things was useful to our survival when our brains evolved, and the fact that they might be now has not yet been incorporated into the plan.

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