The procrastination equation How to stop putting things off and start getting stuff done

According to Steel, an expert on procrastination, about 95 percent of us procrastinate. About a quarter of us are chronic procrastinators, having finely honed the art of putting things off. But why do we do it? It's not like we don't know there are things we should be doing and things we shouldn't. So why do we spend time doing the wrong things? Steel's explanation, which should come as a relief to some, is that procrastination is an evolutionary feature, a sort of biological imperative. Drawing on research from a variety of sources, Steel takes us through the history of procrastination, showing how it has become, in modern times, a serious problem that leads to increased health troubles, loss of productivity, and unnecessary poverty or depression. Fortunately, he also suggests ways we can stop procrastinating and get ourselves on track. A useful, eye-opening book. Now, if only the people who most need to read it could find the time to do so.--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist

In his absorbing first book Steel looks closely at the oft-misunderstood habit of procrastination. Usually seen as laziness, procrastination stems from the mismatch between human evolution and modern society. Steel, a reformed procrastinator who calls procrastination his "life's work," studied the subject by conducting original research and analyzing hundreds of published cross-discipline studies. His carefully crafted volume describes what he calls the "intention-action gap" and explains why so many people are driven to delay. Early chapters, from "Portrait of a Procrastinator" to "The Economic Cost of Procrastination" take the reader on a vivid tour of the consequences of procrastination and analyze why humans are wired to wait. Though Steel is perhaps too abstruse in describing the results of some findings, most of his writing is clear, never more so than when associated with the biology underlying procrastination. "Action points" offer practical advice for readers who have identified their procrastination tendencies. Though some of the author's tools are self-help book staples, Steel adapts them to his subject. His engaging guide will appeal to a wide audience of past, present, and future procrastinators and researchers trying to get a handle on the science of putting things off. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Birth, 1905 My mother's name was Mercy Stone Goodwill. She was only thirty years old when she took sick, a boiling hot day, standing there in her back kitchen, making a Malvern pudding for her husband's supper. A cookery book lay open on the table: "Take some slices of stale bread," the recipe said, "and one pint of currants; half a pint of raspberries; four ounces of sugar; some sweet cream if available." Of course she's divided the recipe in half, there being just the two of them, and what with the scarcity of currants, and Cuyler (my father) being a dainty eater. A pick-and-nibble fellow, she calls him, able to take his food or leave it. It shames her how little the man eats, diddling his spoon around in his dish, perhaps raising his eyes once or twice to send her one of his shy, appreciative glances across the table, but never taking a second helping, just leaving it all for her to finish up -- pulling his hand through the air with that dreamy gesture of his that urges her on. And smiling all the while, his daft tender-faced look. What did food mean to a working man like himself? A bother, a distraction, perhaps even a kind of price that had to be paid in order to remain upright and breathing. Well, it was a different story for her, for my mother. Eating was as close to heaven as my mother ever came. (In our day we have a name for a passion as disordered as hers.) And almost as heavenly as eating was the making -- how she gloried in it! Every last body on this earth has a particular notion of paradise, and this was hers, standing in the murderously hot back kitchen of her own house, concocting and contriving, leaning forward and squinting at the fine print of the cookery book, a clean wooden spoon in hand. It's something to see, the way she concentrates, her hot, busy face, the way she thrills to see the dish take form as she pours the stewed fruit into the fancy mold, pressing the thickly cut bread down over the oozing juices, feeling it soften and absorb bit by bit a raspberry redness. Malvern pudding; she loves the words too, and feels them dissolve on her tongue like a sugary wafer, her tongue itself grown waferlike and sweet. Like an artist -- years later this form of artistry is perfectly clear to me -- she stirs and arranges and draws in her brooding lower lip. Such a dish this will be. A warm sponge soaking up color. (Mrs. Flett next door let her have some currants off her bush; the raspberries she's found herself along the roadside south of the village, even though it half kills her, a woman of her size walking out in the heat of the day.) She sprinkles on extra sugar, one spoonful, then another, then takes the spoon to her mouth, the rough crystals that keep her alert. It is three o'clock -- a hot July afternoon in the middle of Manitoba, in the middle of the Dominion of Canada. The parlor clock (adamantine finish, gilded feet, a wedding present from her husband's family, the Goodwills of Stonewall Township) has just struck the hour. Cuyler will be home from the quarry at five sharp; he will have himself a good cheerful wash at the kitchen basin, and by half-past five the two of them will sit down at the table - this very table, only spread with a clean cloth, every second day a clean cloth -- and eat their supper. Which for the most part will be a silent meal, both my parents being shy by nature, and each brought up in the belief that conversing and eating are different functions, occupying separate trenches of time. Tonight they will partake of cold corned beef with a spoonful of homemade relish, some dressed potatoes at the side, cups of sweet tea, and then this fine pudding. His eyes will widen; my father, Cuyler Goodwill, aged twenty-eight, two years married, will never in his life have tasted Malvern pudding. (That's what she's preparing for -- his stunned and mild look of confusion, that tender, grateful male mouth dropping open in surprise. It's the least she can do, surprise him like this.) She sets a flower-patterned plate carefully on top of the pudding and weights it down with a stone. Excerpted from The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things off and Start Getting Stuff Done by Piers Steel All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.