Preparation and Mental Modes
Is procrastination a behavior that is unique to man? It requires both foresight and activities that are trivial to an individual’s survival. However, it is also a behavior that a non-human observer probably wouldn’t be able to observe. Procrastination can only be observed within a deep cultural context of future expectations. Without personal-level knowledge of an individual, I doubt that an observer would be able to isolate the phenomenon of procrastination in a study of human behavior. So perhaps there are other species that procrastinate, but it is simply not something that has been picked up on. The three toed sloth comes to mind. Zing.
Procrastination arises from a lack of desire, or a lack of preparation/ideal circumstances. An activity may be desired, but the ancillary circumstances that need to be in place (the right tools, transportation, necessary amount of time, etc.) aren’t there, and the desire threshold to create that environment can’t be reached, or the circumstances simply aren’t possible until the next day. In many cases, desire to perform is low because the activity is coerced by societal pressure, i.e. school, work. However, activities that are decided upon by an individual in a pressure-free context are often put off. Are pressure-free contexts in society a myth? If not, what causes desire for action to wane?
Marvin Minsky, in The Society of Mind, proposes that our minds are composed of a vast multitude of agents of various complexity. Agents at the same level of complexity in the mind hierarchy compete with each other for control of the body. When a given agent is unsuccessful at performing its specific function, it quickly loses its activation due to competition from other agents, and some other path through our mental tree is turned on.
Paul Graham has an interesting essay on the types of procrastination.
I’m going on a trip to Martinique in 3.5 days, but I feel un-ready for it, somehow.
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