In this article we get different views on procrastination. How it happens to students and even people who work, every human goes through procrastination. It provides us with different experiments done on humans that explain procrastination. In this reading I relate to “when we put off preparing for that meeting by telling ourselves that we’ll do it tomorrow, we fail to take into account that tomorrow the temptation to put off work will be just as strong.” A lot of the time not only procrastinating Homework I procrastinate the time I have to study for a test which ends up procrastinating every day leading up to the exam, like procrastination doesn’t get better by the time you spend putting off the work it tends to get worse. I agree with the saying “The vaguer the task, or the more abstract the thinking it requires, the less likely you are to finish it.” I agree with this because the more difficult the task it builds a fear of the unknown like the grade you would get the way you will perform on the task and it gets mentally draining. This article shows that even the most punctual people procrastinate; it is almost like every human goes through this. I tend to procrastinate a lot when I have a deadline. I always go on the fact that “I have more time” “is due next week” and I end up doing almost everything last minute. “The key, for Ross, is that although the television-watching self is interested only in watching TV, it’s interested in watching TV not just now but also in the future.” Reading into this sentence in ten reading the author’s choice on how to describe this was confusing. I was overthinking the meaning of the sentence and it took a while to get what the author meant.Â
Category: Difficulty Paper
Difficulty paper
In the article “Later” by James Surowiecki a quote I found relatable is “I woke up and decided that the next morning would be the day to send the Stiglitz box.” He was always about to send the box, but the moment to act never arrived.” I find this relatable because I tend to have to something but always get side tracked by something else. I don’t think I mean to get side tracked but I find something more enjoyable to do then task I’m supposed to.  I think the article gives a very brief explanation on what different philosophers see is the reason for procrastination is. They all have the similar mindset of saying that us as humans always try to go for short run rather then long run because we’re ignorant. I agree and disagree with this social scientist Job Elster when he says this in the article “ people underestimate the time it will take them to complete a given task, so partly because they fail to take account of how long it has taken them to complete similar projects in the past.” I disagree upon the sentence because in terms of college might I say we don’t mind how long the tasks takes to be done we base on the fact if we want to do it.  The tasks could be a 800 word essay or 15 page essay as a college student reading that for an assignment I would consider not how long it would take me to do it ,it’s just not what I’m gonna do at that time.  But if I do admit I did find this article very interesting and very helpful knowing the reasons for my procrastination. And the history of it as well because I never knew procrastination was known in the 16th century very informative.
Difficulty Paper
After reading the article ”Later” by James Surowiecki, I found it somewhat interesting and boring. I learned new things about procrastination. For example, James Surowicki is an economist and he procrastinated when he had to mail a box of clothes from India to America. This shows that everyone procrastinates, even smart people like James himself. James said ”Procrastination is not simply a matter of laziness or poor time management. It’s a complex behavior rooted in the interplay of various psychological factors, including irrational decision-making and the struggle between short-term desires and long-term goals.” I always thought that I am just lazy when I procrastinate, but it is not, it has to do with psychological factors and the human brain. Procrastination in Greek is called ”akrasia”, which means ”doing something against one’s own better judgment”. Many people get easily distracted and do things that are going against their better judgment. For example, I was assigned to read this article, but I was procrastinating while doing so, scrolling on my phone and playing music distracting myself from reading the article. The right thing to do is find a quiet area to read and annotate the article, but I am going against my own better judgment. The statement ”It’s a complex behavior rooted in the interplay of various psychological factors, including irrational decision-making and the struggle between short-term desires and long-term goals.” It really stuck to me because my short term desire right now is to finish up this Youtube video, but my long term goal is to do well in the class and pass it, so I can agree that people make irrational decisions. I lost interest when he brought up the historical background of procrastination. I like articles that are straight forward and straight to the meat, but he brought some past details about procrastination that were not really interesting to me. He also used many difficult words that I never heard of before like, ”hyperbolic discounting” and ”planning fallacy” so it was hard for me to understand and I had to google these terms.Â
