72546
story
Comments: 191 +- Science: Formula For Procrastination Found on Saturday January 13 2007, @02:19PM
Posted
by
kdawson
on Saturday January 13 2007, @02:19PM
from the putting-it-off dept.
from the putting-it-off dept.
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicmath.gif); width:51px; height:47px;
math
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicscience.gif); width:62px; height:75px;
science
kandela writes "Science Daily reports that a University of Calgary academic has published a paper titled The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure in the Psychological Bulletin. The research reveals that most people's New Year's resolutions are doomed to failure, most self-help books have it completely wrong when they say perfectionism is at the root of procrastination, and procrastination can be explained by a single mathematical equation. The research is apparently the culmination of 10 years work. However, no indication was given of how much time was spent putting it off before it was begun." From the article: "Essentially, procrastinators have less confidence in themselves, less expectancy that they can actually complete a task... Perfectionism is not the culprit. In fact, perfectionists actually procrastinate less, but they worry about it more."
Related Stories
Beating Procrastination with Self-Imposed Deadlines 213 comments
"The road to hell is paved with melting snowballs."
-- Larry Wall in <1992Jul2.222039.26476@netlabs.com>
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.
That's great! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's great! (Score:5, Funny)
P.S. I would've gotten first post, but I kept putting it off and putting it off.
Parent
Re:That's great! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:That's great! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:That's great! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:That's great! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
Re:That's great! (Score:5, Funny)
No worries, the dupe'll be around in a couple of days.
Parent
Re:That's great! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
End link tag please... (Score:2, Funny)
Ryan Fenton
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I was going to submit this story months ago (Score:2, Funny)
HD-DVD keys (Score:4, Funny)
I wanted to post this in the last story, but I just got around to it now.
Old news (Score:4, Funny)
Quite a title there (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Uhh, the opposite for me (Score:3, Interesting)
I procrastinate because I HAVE confidence that I can finish the task later, not because I'm afraid that I won' actually be able to complete a task. If I'm afraid about finishing a task, I will start it earlier. Fear of not being able to complete a task leads to NOT doing that task for a lot of people, not procrastinating.
These "scientific studies" over analyze simple things such as procrastination. Ever think that maybe it's because of laziness, or just that you really want to watch that football game?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Procrastinators have less confidence in the ability of their co-workers to complete a task on time (and correctly). Procrastination is a survival skill for talented employees of large corporations. If you're gung-ho and get the job done quickly, you must do it all over again when the specifications change a week before the delivery date. If you have "slack time", you must fix the mess the department screw-ups made of their assignments (all the while remaining a "team player" and saying nothing about the wre
The author's isn't a procrastinator (Score:2)
-wb-
Re: (Score:2)
Nahh, it was supposed to be April 1, 1989. He's just being consistent!
Re: (Score:2)
-wb-
At least in my case, totally wrong. (Score:5, Interesting)
I procrastinate. Hard-core. I'll put off week-long tasks until the night before. I don't do this because I expect to fail and can blame starting too late - I do it because I know perfecly well that I can do that and still finish the task on time.
If you accuse me of any confidence-related shortfall, you'd have to call me over- confident. Perfectionist, though? In some things, yes. But I don't procrastinate for that reason either. Where do these absurd theories come from?
You want to know why I procrastinate, knowing full-well that, while I may not produce my best results, I also have no doubt that I will succeed in producing an acceptible finished product? Simple - Because I've found that at least half the time, the task's nature changes significantly or the task outright goes away. No joke.
In school, teachers/professors would always extend deadlines because most people whined too loudly that they considered the (perfectly easy and reasonable) assignment too hard or unfair. Professors would scale back the requirements, excuse subpar work, and often never even bother looking at what people turned in.
In the working world, most "urgent problems" that come up, go away without any intervention by the next day. Long term projects have their budgets slashed at the end of the quarter. reports never get read anyway.
So, by putting everything off until the last minute, I find myself with a hell of a lot more time to spend on meaningful (aka "self directed") activities.
That doesn't, however, translate to "lazy". When I say "self-directed", I mean self-directed. I have always impressed my professors or managers not with the quality of my assigned work, but with the quality of what I do for its own sake. But then, I enjoy what I do, so my "personal" projects tend to have value to any endeavor I take on.
And all this because I procrastinate, a habit looked down on by most people.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
MOD UP (Score:3, Informative)
Re:At least in my case, totally wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
If it can't be done the night before...
it can't be done.
Parent
So this is it (Score:4, Funny)
We're a federally protected class (Score:5, Insightful)
If it is genetic, then procrastinator should be protected under discrimination laws, like vets, the blind, etc. "You can't charge me interest or penalties on my unpaid income tax! I'm disabled by GPD." ( Genetic Procrastination Disorder )
Links (Score:3, Informative)
Links to the sources:
BTW: A quote I saw on the latter site:
Useless formula (Score:5, Insightful)
It looks like this and uses the Greek letter G (capital gamma [except I changed the gamma to a G since slashdot wouldn't take the gamma]): Utility = E x V / GD
Here's my problem with psychology types coming up with formulae--the results of the calculation depend heavily on the scale used for measurement of the variables. I don't know of any standard scale for "expectancy of succeeding with a given task" or any of the other variables. Further, it seems that these variables would depend on self-evaluation, which we all know is not particularly useful--particularly in this area.
In other words--why did this guy claim to make a formula? Formulae are for people looking for a result that is reasonably precise; but in this case the extremely imprecise input will result in useless output.
Oh, one of those "Formula for XY found" stories... (Score:3, Interesting)
These stories are just clever PR gags, they contain nothing of scientific value. Just look at the "equation" for a moment and you start wondering what the actually equate:
"Steel has also come up with the E=mc2 of procrastination, a formula he's dubbed Temporal Motivational Theory, which takes into account factors such as the expectancy a person has of succeeding with a given task (E), the value of completing the task (V), the desirability of the task (Utility), its immediacy or availability () and the person's sensitivity to delay (D). It looks like this and uses the Greek letter (capital gamma): Utility = E x V / D"
See: "expectancy", "value", "desirability" and so on. Perfect scientific quantities, don't you think?
Read more about those jerks atGuardian's Bad Science [guardian.co.uk], they come up regularly
Procrasticode (Score:5, Interesting)
if (job.time_allocated < job.deadline - now()) {
play();
}else{
work();
}
} while (!job.finished)
That's how I do it even though this is clearly more efficient:
while (!job.finished) work();
play();
A Little Poem (Score:2)
Procrastination is my sin
It brings me endless sorrow
I really should stop doing it
I guess I'll stop tomorrow
Depression (Score:5, Interesting)
Procrastinators drive progress (Score:5, Insightful)
I learned Procrastination in school (Score:2)
Well, duh. Of course perfectionism isn't involved (Score:4, Interesting)
I put off stuff when I don't want to do it. End of story. I find that reminding myself of the consequences for not getting things done is only mildly effective. You have to have a balance of work and pleasure. Sometimes, going off and partying really is the answer. When you're "relaxed" or "partied out", then you're more willing to work. If you find yourself fulminating about something you don't want to do, stop. Get a cup of coffee, talk with a friend, play a game, whatever makes you feel good. This will take just as much time, but when you come back you'll be happier about rolling up your sleaves and getting the job done.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahh... the ever popular "I'll make outrageous inferences" troll. Either you're doing it on purpose to be difficult, it's an honest mistake, or I have some sort of defecit in my writing. I've been subject to this form of attack, if that's what it is, on more than on occasion. I've gotten to the point where I feel I must refuse to reply to them in terms of what's actually being implied. Instead, I can only offer that if you think I've said something ridiculous, odds are it was not what I intended to say.
Well, sort of... (Score:4, Insightful)
I procrastinate because, yes, I'm an under-achiever and uncertain of myself. But I think I'm an underachiever because I've intentionally and strategically kept new people out of my life for fear of being found out as a bisexual (including remaining a virgin... I don't know if remaining a virgin throughout college is common or if I'm in an extremely tiny minority).
Instead of succeeding, I purposefully have kept away from doing anything that might even remotely mean people being near or around me for over the last ten years, almost becoming a shut-in hermit except for going to my university (in which I'd talk to nobody). When you're hard-working and successful, and finish your work on time, you have a chance of being in some spotlight, such as the Dean's list or honor roll... remaining anonymous and unknown meant nobody would notice or get hurt if I, oh, just happened to jump off a bridge someday, and I performed accordingly in my work to reflect that. I have nobody to blame but myself for being a coward, having very recently come to terms with how my irrational fears of irrational people have severely jeopardized my well-being; and that if someone has a problem with something so trivial about me, that's THEIR fucking problem, not MINE. But that's another story... I procrastinated on purpose. During these last couple of months I have finally been working on some of the things I wanted to do when in college, at least those things related to computer programming such as teaching myself other programming languages, writing a small game, making a crude graphics rendering engine to learn more OpenGL than I did in college... of course, it's not as fun when you're not working on something like this with fellow students and having fun, but I've graduated and now I'm not sure where or how to meet people in my town.
Anyway, I'm getting distracted from the subject at hand. Long story short, irrational fears not directly related to what you're procrastinating may indirectly cause you to procrastinate what you're procrastinating... (I hope that wasn't grammar-diarrhea)
The word has always creeped me out (Score:4, Funny)
not my experience (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad science (linky inside to ben goldacre) (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad science and useless formula [guardian.co.uk]
Folk as it has already been psoted earlier this is simply some PR agency which asked some random guy to MAKE UP a formulae. That's it. The formulae is useless , as useless as the pr/marketing around it. Tskkkk. What's it with Slashdot and pseudo science ?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's a PR agency playing pseudo-scientist (Score:5, Insightful)
The way at least those invariably happened is: some company, let's call it Moraelin Tobacco Ltd, contacts some PR agency to drum up interest in smoking a bit. Tobacco taxes are up, people have made new year's resolutions to quit smoking, etc, and I could use a bit of reminding them to light one. Remember, PR isn't marketting: marketting tells you "buy Moraelin's cigarettes", PR works in more insidious ways, like telling you "boffins discovered that smoking is actually good for your health." It's marketting's evil stealthy brother. It loves to disguise itself as news.
So the PR agency concocts some stupid formula, say, "the formula for the perfect smoking experience." It's usually a stupid formula: for example the ones at badscience.net routinely do stupid stuff like add numbers that don't even have the same units. (E.g., one adds time to time squared.) They also invariably don't even tell you how to measure any of the factors involved, don't have any studies to prove it (and never a control group), etc. But the purpose of that formula isn't to be scientific, but to get Joe Sixpack's attention to whatever I'm selling, and/or to undermine whatever he had against it. Marketting will take it from there.
Ok, now they have a formula they can disguise as news, but if it comes from a PR agency, noone will take it seriously. Even Joe Sixpack isn't usually _that_ stupid. So the next round there is to find someone with some "Dr", "Prof" or whatever important sounding title, and preferrably from some university (sounds all smart and stuff to Joe Sixpack), who's willing to sell his name for some money. A lot will tell them where to shove it, but eventually they find, say, Prof Jack Conman from the university of East Bumfuckistan, who wasn't doing any research anyway and doesn't give a damn about getting a bad reputation among his peers. Sure, he'll take the PR agency's money and sign his name on their pseudo-science "paper."
And now we have all we need to send that "news" to every major newspaper, disguised as academic research.
Does it start to sound like TFA yet?
Because that's exactly what we have here: a stupid formula where they even admit that they don't even know how to measure the variables involved. Nor have any statistical data to show that that's how it works. Did they take two groups, told them to do the same project, but group A got told it's a critical, while group B was told it's unimportant? Was the time difference really linearly proportional to the value difference in dollars? Well, I don't see any such study, much less the values and error bar that would accompany real research.
And how about the elementary issue that all tasks are ultimately split into smaller sub-tasks. Any program you ever wrote, you didn't deal with it as one monumental indivisible task, but broke it up in packages, modules, functions, etc. Do you become automatically demotivated and likely to procrastinate for weeks, just because next on your list is a sub-task like the file input dialog (low V in his formula) than going after the whole program in one step (high V)? Well, blimey, wonder why we've been doing it then, in all these decades of structured design and project management.
And how about other factors, like morale, stress, or being overworked? Shouldn't they be at least mentioned in a real scientific study? Doing a big "we don't know why, it might possibly be genetic" shrug doesn't strike me as particularly clued.
And does procrastination really work that way? Really? Because the RL cases I've seen weren't as much a case of adding a fixed number of days, as a case of expanding to fill the deadline and then some. I.e., more of a case of "ah, I s
Parent
Re:It's a PR agency playing pseudo-scientist (Score:5, Funny)
Wish I had mod points, I'd just mod you informative & call it a day.
Parent
Re:It's a PR agency playing pseudo-scientist (Score:4, Insightful)
At any rate, where is the study and control group for, you know, testing that formula? Identifying finite variables is good and fine, but when you put them in a maths formula, where's the experiment that tests it, and what is the error bar? What are the units used? _How_ do you measure those variables?
Without that, it's pure bullshit pseudo-science at its finest.
Identifying variables is good and fine, but just making up a formula involving them isn't. Not without the experimental data.
E.g., let's do gravity the bullshit way he does this maths. Mass seems to be a factor. Distance seems to influence it somehow, but let's not actually do an experiment or use a telescope to find out by how much. The density of the medium seems to influence it somehow too, since objects immersed in water seem lighter. (Ok, it doesn't work that way, but that's the way a thoroughly uninformed non-scientific guess would probably end up like.) So let's guess that F = mass / (distance + density). Hmm, wrong units summed up below (though the average PR bullshitter wouldn't spot that), so maybe it's F = mass / (distance * density).
That's the kind of utter bullshit you can arrive at, if you just make up a formula with some variables you don't even understand or know how to measure. And that's the kind of guess this guy does.
You don't need some Ph.D. in anything to understand why just guessing a formula bogus. You just need to have paid even minimal attention to the science classes in school.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a PR agency playing pseudo-scientist (Score:4, Informative)
Here's his resume:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~steel/procrastinus/homepa
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
hiring, online dating.
What's wrong with that? Well, the moment that you claim it does it in 1/1000 of the time, let's make one thing clear: it means doing in 2 hours what you could do in about a year (at 40 hours a week.) You have to throw away any attempt at interviews, checking references, etc. You just feed the computer the CVs or the dating profiles and it spits out the "Rambo employee" that'll wipe ou
Re:Wait what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
A friend of mine, way back when he was a Boy Scout, was given a circular disc of wood and told to burn the letters "TUIT" into it. He did so, and when he asked what it meant, he was told "the next time somebody says 'they just haven't got around to it yet', he should hand them the disc and say, 'here you go'".