If you’re reading this to avoid doing your job, housework, homework, socialising, or all of the above then you are procrastinating.
We all procrastinate every day. In an age where social media, emails and apps are constantly attached to our hips we are always distracted by something. Have I still got your attention?
But apparently there is one type of person that procrastinates more than everyone else. I am one of these people and it has surprised me that having a certain trait has made me more susceptible to procrastination (don’t tell my boss).
Impatient people. The people who hate standing in line, can’t handle being stuck in traffic, get pent up rage when they’re kept on hold (answer the damn phone please), these people are more likely to procrastinate.
Impatient people hate waiting for things to happen. They start doing something in the present that stops them from doing a task in the near future because they get bored, fast.
A study in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics shows why impatience can be connected to procrastination.
A behavioural economist at Columbia Business School, Ernesto Reuben conducted a study with co-authors that measured patience a little differently to the way it usually is.
Instead of offering participants cash, as other researchers have, Reuden and his team offered the participants cheques.They wanted to see how long it would take for participants to cash their cheques.
Over 50 per cent of people who took the cheque straight away took over two weeks to cash it, 30 per cent who took it immediately didn't cash it for a month and 15 per cent didn't cash it - ever.
Ultimately the study found that people who need things right now also can't be bothered to do boring errands. Going to the bank seems mundane and so it's put off, and procrastination fills the gap.
While we all procrastinate (unless you're super human), it seems us impatient folk are more likely to put 'boring' things off, than the more patient among us.
Are you a procrastinator? What do you always leave until the last minute?
