What got me confused when reading “Later” by James Surowiecki was when he stated on page 4, “According to Piers Steel, a business professor at the University of Calgary, the percentage of people who admitted to difficulties with procrastination quadrupled between 1978 and 2002.” This made me wonder if this was an ongoing problem that many had, or if it was recently around this age. At the same time, earlier in that page Surowiecki states, “Ainslie is probably right that procrastination is a basic human impulse, but anxiety about it as a serious problem seems to have emerged in the early modern era.” Based on these pieces of text I have come to the conclusion that his point is that there has always been procrastination but the feeling of anxiety that comes with it is more recent. Something that irked me when reading this was the idea in which we fail to predict the circumstances in leaving a task for later. This was a big slap in the face because of the amount of times I unexpected things have happened but I still leave things for last minute. For instance, Surowiecki writes, “Ignorance might also affect procrastination through what the social scientist Jon Elster calls ‘the planning fallacy.’” The author goes on to talk about how Jon Elster thinks people underestimate the scenarios or events that can unwillingly take place. He also goes on to give us a personal example in which things happened, while he was writing this same paper, that were out of his hands. He states, “Each of these events was, strictly speaking, unexpected, and each took time away from my work. But they were really just the kinds of problems you predictably have to deal with in everyday life.” By doing this, the author had most definitely tied his ideas on the unexpected events or difficulties when putting off a task.
Category: Difficulty Paper
D.1
This article speaks about the many different experiences with procrastination and why it is a thing. Something that bored me with this article was that it was very long. I believe something that made me procrastinate on reading this article was seeing the amount of pages that it had. I think the sentences were very long and it was hard to keep up with some points. But I will say that I do somewhat relate to it. For example I can relate to thinking I have more time than I actually do. In the article on page 7, it states, “Elster thinks that people underestimate the time ‘it will take them to complete a given task, partly because they fail to take account of how long it has taken them to complete similar projects in the past and partly because they rely on smooth scenarios in which accidents or unforeseen problems never occur.'”. I often don’t plan ahead for situations that may come up. For example, I could have a paper to do but then procrastinate and then maybe a family emergency will come up causing me to have less time which leads me to be late with my submission of my paper. Something that I found that was interesting was that lack of confidence has a role in procrastination. In the text on page 8, it says, “McClellan’s “immobility” highlights several classic reasons we procrastinate. Although when he took over the Union army he told Lincoln ‘I can do it all,’ he seems to have been unsure that he could do anything. He was perpetually imploring Lincoln for new weapons, and, in the words of one observer,’he felt he never had enough troops, well enough trained or equipped.’Lack of confidence…”. This example shows that even a general faced procrastination during the war because of lack of confidence. He didn’t believe that he could carry out the task even though he was well prepared for fear that he would fail. I never thought that lack of confidence would have a role in procrastination.
HW D.1
The article “Later” was a somewhat interesting article. It talked about procrastination and how long it has been around for. I relate personally to this article a lot and it is part of the reason as to why I find it interesting. One of the things I found frustrating was how procrastination is explained. In the article they explain it as a will to be able to do the tasks you need completed. But it also states that when people find their own solutions to solving their “will” problem, it isn’t a real solution, it is their “extended will”. I find this frustrating because making your will stronger doesn’t have to be the only solution to your procrastination problem. If there is a simple and easy solution that best fits you, I feel that you should stick with it. Other than this frustration, I think the article is very informational. It provides a good amount of information about procrastination that I for sure did not know about. For example, the article talks about an experiment where people chose to get a hundred dollars today or a hundred and ten the next. They also did the same with a month difference. They later found out that people would rather wait a month and a day for the extra ten rather than an extra day. “In other words, hyperbolic discounters are able to make the rational choice when they’re thinking about the future, but, as the present gets closer, short-term considerations overwhelm their long-term goals.“ This means that some people don’t think clearly about their goals depending on the time window. If they can get something that benefits them now, then they would take it immediately. But if they know that they have time to wait, they would make the best choice possible for their future.
Homework d.1
  The article “Later” by James Surowiecki depicts the idea of procrastination as something we all struggle with sometimes. Something I found confusing is when the author illustrates McClellan’s struggles with procrastination during the Civil War. He states: “In 1862, despite an excellent opportunity to take Richmond from Robert E. Lee’s men, with another Union army attacking in a pincer move, he dilly-dallied, convinced that he was blocked by hordes of Confederate soldiers, and missed his chance.” I had to re-read this sentence about two or three times to understand the description that the author was trying to convey. I think this is a very good example that the author uses to show how even war leaders and generals struggled with procrastination. Sometimes complex contexts like war and words that were used in the past might be hard to understand. Another thing that I found difficult to comprehend was when the author depicts Ulysses’ experience on the ship. The author states: “Ulysses knows that when he hears the Sirens he will be too weak to resist steering the ship onto the rocks in pursuit of them, so he has his men bind him, thereby forcing him to adhere to his long-term aims”. I was able to comprehend the imagery and description used by the author but it was difficult to relate it to his main point of the paragraph, which is that we should rely on external tools to help with procrastination.
