I'm Jan Black.

And I'm Laura Owens.

And I think we can all relate to the idea of putting something off to the last minute.

We're really excited to be talking to our next guest about this.

Tim Pitchell is one of the world's leading experts in procrastination. He's the author of the

procrastination puzzle and a contributor to publications like Fortune, Psychology Today, and the

Washington Post. He's director of the Center for Initiatives in Education and is a faculty member in the Department

of Psychology at Carlton University. He also hosts the very popular podcast, I Procrastinate.

Welcome to the show, Tim. Thanks very much. Thank you so much for joining us. How do you define

procrastination? Well, procrastination is a nasty form of delay because not all, although all

procrastination is delay, not all delay is procrastination. And with that in mind, procrastination is

a voluntary delay of an intended act. Despite the recognition, you're probably going to be

worse off for this delay. So you become your own worst enemy. And that's really important

to understand that there's no upside to procrastination. You and I have to delay things all the time.

We put this call off, for example, from last night to today. But it wasn't procrastination. It was

purposeful delay. It was sagacious, knowledgeable delay In other times, there can be inevitable delay. If my

children were sick right now, I might have to delay our conversation again, but it wouldn't be

procrastination. So procrastination is a voluntary delay of an intended act. You think you should

be working now, but you're not. And you think, this isn't a good idea. All of that comes

together to make procrastination.

And it's voluntary, but it has a lot to do with willpower. Can you explain that?

Well, it doesn't. It doesn't. You're right. It has everything to do with voluntariness in the sense that we're putting it off, but lots of people don't feel that way.

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