When the time came to write this month’s commentary, I found myself in a somewhat lackluster state sitting at the kitchen table drinking Teeccino and eating dark chocolate with bits of ginger without a relevant thought in my head. My thoughts, such as they were, mostly drifted to what else I could do besides write a commentary. As I did this, I absent-mindedly leafed through a magazine that had arrived that morning. And there it was. Condemnation and inspiration all rolled up into one. An article about procrastination.
Surely if there were a road to hell reserved for those those have succumbed to procrastination related to their companion animals, it would be bumper to bumper for miles. For quite a few grooming and/or nail-trimming would head the Most Put-Off list. For others is would be daily exercise. For still others, weight loss. For yet another group, dealing with behavioral problems of one sort or another would fuel their trip to their fiery destination.
In my younger, less experienced days this is where I immediately would have offered suggestions about how to deal with the scourge of procrastination, complete with bulleted lists for those too excited to get right to it to read the whole article. But the more I’ve delved into behavior, the more importance I place on understanding the whys underlying it.
Because of this, the title of the article, Why we procrastinate (by James Suroweicki excerpted from The New Yorker in the January 14, 2011 The Week magazine), immediately caught my eye.
“Why do we procrastinate?” I immediately wondered. Because so many of us do it, surely it must serve some purpose.
When I read the article I discovered that this is, indeed, the case. Believe it or not, the study of procrastination has attracted a significant following. Given how often we’re attracted to subjects that are of personal interest to us, this raises the interesting question: Are those who study procrastination less like to complete their research on time?
But never mind that for now. The three points I’d like to focus on are 1) that procrastination appears to be a part of human nature and probably always has been, 2) that it involves deferring something even though we know the delay probably will make matters worse, and 3) as a result of 2, doing it doesn’t make us feel good.
So when, for example, I delay doing the dogs’ nails I know those nails are going to continue to grow and that even if I do a bang-up job when I finally do it, I’ll know I should have done it sooner. If, God forbid, one of those nails scratches someone or gets caught in something and cause the dog pain, I’ll feel even worse.
Why would I or anyone else subject themselves and their animals to this? And why was I having trouble summoning any examples of procrastination in animals?
The answer to both of those questions may be the human fascination with the human invention known as time. Think about how much time people spend thinking about time: what we should do during this hour, morning, day, week, month, winter, year, etc. Worse than the amount of energy we may waste doing this is the fact that most of us have an irrational relationship with time so all this time-related cogitation isn’t worth much, either.
For example, most of us are able to make more rational choices when they involve something in the future. But as the future gets closer, we allow short-term goals to take precedence. An illustration Suroweicki uses in his article is one with which I can readily identify, although I succumb to this more in terms of books than films. When people are asked what kind of movie they want to watch in the future, they’re more likely to select more a serious, thought-provoking or otherwise challenging one. But in the short term, they’re more likely to pick fluff.
The problem is that, be it selecting books or films or engaging in various programs to enhance animal behavior and/or health, as last week’s future becomes this week’s present, there’s no shortage of fluff that looks more appealing. We opt for the fluff, but feel guilty and depressed for doing it. Then we vow that next week, we’ll read/watch/eat/drink/do something more beneficial and the cycle begins again.
But surely there must be some benefit to procrastination or the behavior would have been eliminated from the species gene pool. And so there is because some of what we put off may not be worth the energy to do anyhow. Years ago when I was working in a very busy veterinary medical practice, the stack of papers on my desk grew bigger and bigger. But by the time I addressed everything directly related to my patients and clients, there was never any time to read all those unrelated articles and ads for various products and services that I might or might not use. Soon I forgot what was in the bottom of the pile and groaned with each new unread addition. Every day I’d tell myself that I must tackle the stack. Some days I’d set up a specific time in the future to do this. Other times I left it open-ended. Regardless of the approach, I never did it, always felt guilty I hadn’t, and the pile kept growing.
I can’t remember what caused me to pitch the whole pile one day. Knowing what I know about behavior now, I’d guess that the last article I put on it took me to the tipping point. The amount of energy associated with either the negative feelings of avoiding the task or doing it just wasn’t worth any benefit. I told myself that, if there really was anything important in that stack, I could look it up if the need arose. As it turned out, either the need for that information never arose or, if it did, I didn’t remember that it had been somewhere in that pile. All I remember is the feeling of freedom when the pile was gone.
What makes procrastination a problem is making procrastination a problem. By that I mean that we live in a society in which we raise normal, albeit possibly irritating behaviors to the level of diseases then wait for some expert to give us a cure. If no cure is available, we want something to eliminate any negative feelings the behavior might cause us.
Compare this to Victor Hugo’s approach. When he realized that he’d rather go outside than write, he had his valet hide all of his clothes and wrote naked. Put another way, he assumed responsibility for his behavior and made changes that would make it as easy for him to do what he didn’t want to do.
Other people have different ploys. For me even though it didn’t work when I was younger, writing something down on a do-list sounds the death knell to procrastination now. If it’s on that list, it will get done. Of course, that doesn’t keep me from procrastinating about putting some chore on the list to begin with. But it does shorten the period of delay and the lousy feelings that go with it.
Other people tie the unpleasant chore to other events. They allow themselves to put off some unpleasant task without guilt, but don’t allow themselves to substitute a more pleasurable one for it. So they don’t have to groom the dog today, but they can’t take him to visit their friends who adore him tomorrow because he’ll shed all over their homes.
But when we don’t want to do something ever, then it’s better all the way around to accept this and let it go. I wound up in a horrible bind this winter because I ordered wood from two—count ‘em two—guys who told me they would deliver the wood within a matter of weeks. Then they procrastinated and then I procrastinated calling them about it. This process, which began last April if you can believe it, went on until January when there was beaucoup snow on the ground. Had the one I ordered the wood from last April called and admitted in June that it wasn’t going to happen, I would have accepted that with no ill feelings and found someone else. And no doubt, had I called him at that time and nicely demanded a yes or no answer, he would have given it to me. Instead we wound up with procrastination squared and we both lost. That I somehow wound up with another woodguy with whom I experienced this same phenomenon strongly suggests that I’m a slow learner when it comes to this aspect of procrastination!
But it was a lesson well learned and I have no intention of repeating it.
So the role of procrastination can be summed up in the familiar animal-related saying: The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. Sometimes putting things off works and sometimes it doesn’t. Some medical and behavioral problems will get better on their own, others will get worse.
The challenge is knowing which situations fall into which category.
If you have any comments regarding subject matter, favorite links, or anything you’d like to see discussed on or added to this site, please let me know at mm@mmilani.com.
When the time came to write this month’s commentary, I found myself in a somewhat lackluster state sitting at the kitchen table drinking Teeccino and eating dark chocolate with bits of ginger without a relevant thought in my head. My thoughts, such as they were, mostly drifted to what else I could do besides write a commentary. As I did this, I absent-mindedly leafed through a magazine that had arrived that morning. And there it was. Condemnation and inspiration all rolled up into one. An article about procrastination.
Surely if there were a road to hell reserved for those those have succumbed to procrastination related to their companion animals, it would be bumper to bumper for miles. For quite a few grooming and/or nail-trimming would head the Most Put-Off list. For others is would be daily exercise. For still others, weight loss. For yet another group, dealing with behavioral problems of one sort or another would fuel their trip to their fiery destination.
In my younger, less experienced days this is where I immediately would have offered suggestions about how to deal with the scourge of procrastination, complete with bulleted lists for those too excited to get right to it to read the whole article. But the more I’ve delved into behavior, the more importance I place on understanding the whys underlying it.
Because of this, the title of the article, Why we procrastinate (by James Suroweicki excerpted from The New Yorker in the January 14, 2011 The Week magazine), immediately caught my eye.
“Why do we procrastinate?” I immediately wondered. Because so many of us do it, surely it must serve some purpose.
When I read the article I discovered that this is, indeed, the case. Believe it or not, the study of procrastination has attracted a significant following. Given how often we’re attracted to subjects that are of personal interest to us, this raises the interesting question: Are those who study procrastination less like to complete their research on time?
But never mind that for now. The three points I’d like to focus on are 1) that procrastination appears to be a part of human nature and probably always has been, 2) that it involves deferring something even though we know the delay probably will make matters worse, and 3) as a result of 2, doing it doesn’t make us feel good.
So when, for example, I delay doing the dogs’ nails I know those nails are going to continue to grow and that even if I do a bang-up job when I finally do it, I’ll know I should have done it sooner. If, God forbid, one of those nails scratches someone or gets caught in something and cause the dog pain, I’ll feel even worse.
Why would I or anyone else subject themselves and their animals to this? And why was I having trouble summoning any examples of procrastination in animals?
The answer to both of those questions may be the human fascination with the human invention known as time. Think about how much time people spend thinking about time: what we should do during this hour, morning, day, week, month, winter, year, etc. Worse than the amount of energy we may waste doing this is the fact that most of us have an irrational relationship with time so all this time-related cogitation isn’t worth much, either.
For example, most of us are able to make more rational choices when they involve something in the future. But as the future gets closer, we allow short-term goals to take precedence. An illustration Suroweicki uses in his article is one with which I can readily identify, although I succumb to this more in terms of books than films. When people are asked what kind of movie they want to watch in the future, they’re more likely to select more a serious, thought-provoking or otherwise challenging one. But in the short term, they’re more likely to pick fluff.
The problem is that, be it selecting books or films or engaging in various programs to enhance animal behavior and/or health, as last week’s future becomes this week’s present, there’s no shortage of fluff that looks more appealing. We opt for the fluff, but feel guilty and depressed for doing it. Then we vow that next week, we’ll read/watch/eat/drink/do something more beneficial and the cycle begins again.
But surely there must be some benefit to procrastination or the behavior would have been eliminated from the species gene pool. And so there is because some of what we put off may not be worth the energy to do anyhow. Years ago when I was working in a very busy veterinary medical practice, the stack of papers on my desk grew bigger and bigger. But by the time I addressed everything directly related to my patients and clients, there was never any time to read all those unrelated articles and ads for various products and services that I might or might not use. Soon I forgot what was in the bottom of the pile and groaned with each new unread addition. Every day I’d tell myself that I must tackle the stack. Some days I’d set up a specific time in the future to do this. Other times I left it open-ended. Regardless of the approach, I never did it, always felt guilty I hadn’t, and the pile kept growing.
I can’t remember what caused me to pitch the whole pile one day. Knowing what I know about behavior now, I’d guess that the last article I put on it took me to the tipping point. The amount of energy associated with either the negative feelings of avoiding the task or doing it just wasn’t worth any benefit. I told myself that, if there really was anything important in that stack, I could look it up if the need arose. As it turned out, either the need for that information never arose or, if it did, I didn’t remember that it had been somewhere in that pile. All I remember is the feeling of freedom when the pile was gone.
What makes procrastination a problem is making procrastination a problem. By that I mean that we live in a society in which we raise normal, albeit possibly irritating behaviors to the level of diseases then wait for some expert to give us a cure. If no cure is available, we want something to eliminate any negative feelings the behavior might cause us.
Compare this to Victor Hugo’s approach. When he realized that he’d rather go outside than write, he had his valet hide all of his clothes and wrote naked. Put another way, he assumed responsibility for his behavior and made changes that would make it as easy for him to do what he didn’t want to do.
Other people have different ploys. For me even though it didn’t work when I was younger, writing something down on a do-list sounds the death knell to procrastination now. If it’s on that list, it will get done. Of course, that doesn’t keep me from procrastinating about putting some chore on the list to begin with. But it does shorten the period of delay and the lousy feelings that go with it.
Other people tie the unpleasant chore to other events. They allow themselves to put off some unpleasant task without guilt, but don’t allow themselves to substitute a more pleasurable one for it. So they don’t have to groom the dog today, but they can’t take him to visit their friends who adore him tomorrow because he’ll shed all over their homes.
But when we don’t want to do something ever, then it’s better all the way around to accept this and let it go. I wound up in a horrible bind this winter because I ordered wood from two—count ‘em two—guys who told me they would deliver the wood within a matter of weeks. Then they procrastinated and then I procrastinated calling them about it. This process, which began last April if you can believe it, went on until January when there was beaucoup snow on the ground. Had the one I ordered the wood from last April called and admitted in June that it wasn’t going to happen, I would have accepted that with no ill feelings and found someone else. And no doubt, had I called him at that time and nicely demanded a yes or no answer, he would have given it to me. Instead we wound up with procrastination squared and we both lost. That I somehow wound up with another woodguy with whom I experienced this same phenomenon strongly suggests that I’m a slow learner when it comes to this aspect of procrastination!
But it was a lesson well learned and I have no intention of repeating it.
So the role of procrastination can be summed up in the familiar animal-related saying: The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. Sometimes putting things off works and sometimes it doesn’t. Some medical and behavioral problems will get better on their own, others will get worse.
The challenge is knowing which situations fall into which category.
If you have any comments regarding subject matter, favorite links, or anything you’d like to see discussed on or added to this site, please let me know at mm@mmilani.com.