---
title: '<cite class="book">The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done</cite>'
author: Ben
type: quotes
date: 2021-01-27T12:17:18+00:00
url: /quotes/the-procrastination-equation-how-to-stop-putting-things-off-and-start-getting-stuff-done/

---
> &#8230;the guiltless leisure you can enjoy when your daily tasks are done.

> With all the camaraderie, alcohol, sex, and&mdash;headiest of all temptations&mdash;the freedom to enjoy them all, university can lure us into the unregulated state of bliss where the liberties of adulthood are combined with only a minority of the responsibilities.

> Businesses respond to our dominant desires, so there is no coercion or conspiracy here, just the invisible hand of the market building a limbic system wonderland.

> Materialism and consumerism are merely emergent properties of our neurobiology given free reign in a free market.

> So here&#8217;s the situation. Procrastination isn&#8217;t just battling a hundred million years of evolution. It is battling a hundred million years of evolution that are being actively exploited at every turn by the very fabric of our society.

> I now gathered that procrastination in excess was, or had become, a marked feature in Coleridge&#8217;s daily life. Nobody who knew him ever thought of depending on any appointment he might make. Spite of his uniformly honourable intentions, nobody attached any weight to his assurances in re future [in regard to the future]. Those who asked him to dinner, or any other party, as a matter of course sent a carriage for him, and went personally or by proxy to fetch him; and as to letters, unless the address was in some female hand that commanded his affectionate esteem, he tossed them all into one general dead-letter bureau, and rarely, I believe, opened them at all.<footer>Letter from Coleridge&#8217;s friend</footer> 

> If over the breakfast table you call the CEO mom and the Chairman of the board dad, you are likely going to be wealthy no matter what your personal vices are.

> Other chronic procrastinators might end up in a career&mdash;and there are a few&mdash;where it is very difficult to procrastinate&mdash;careers with built-in daily goals, like sales or journalism. With everything due today, the leeway to procrastinate is exceedingly slim.

> It is a big world and you need to experience at least some of it.

> He that has not mastery over his inclinations, he that knows not how to resist the importunity of present pleasure or pain, for the sake of what reason tells him is fit to be done, wants the true principle of virtue and industry, and is in danger never to be good for anything.<footer>John Locke</footer> 

> Despite its disastrous track records, thought suppression is a popular technique used to combat&mdash;ineffectively&mdash;everything from homosexual urges to racial stereotypes.

> Your second line of defense is to run a &#8216;smear campaign&#8217; on whatever features your limbic system finds desirable.

> To get motivated, they need a clear and close finish line.

> If you protect your routine, eventually it will protect you.

Giloviqh T & Medvec V.H. (1996) The experience of regret

Roese NJ & Summervilla A (2005) What we regret&#8230;and why

King LA & Hicks JA (2007) Whatever happened to &#8216;what might have been&#8217;?