Procrastination or the act unnecessarily postponing things can sometimes make one regret as it can lead to lost opportunities, relationships and more. In this video, writer Tim Urban delves inside the mind of a serial procrastinator, i.e himself.
In the TED video, Tim explained what it feels like to have the brain of a chronic procrastinator. He shared that when he was in college, he only worked on his senior thesis, that was due in a year, in the last few weeks before submission. Not only did he receive no accolades, he called the thesis “very, very bad.”
Sharing ways one can stop procrastinating, he said that the procrastinating part of the brain the “instant gratification monkey” because people who postpone things only seem to get work done faster with an approaching deadline or some kind of stress involved.
”The instant gratification monkey does not seem like a guy you want behind the wheel. He lives entirely in the present moment. He has no memory of the past, no knowledge of the future, and he only cares about two things: easy and fun. Now, in the animal world, that works fine. If you’re a dog and you spend your whole life doing nothing other than easy and fun things, you’re a huge success!” he said.
He added that those who do struggle, should take a long, hard look at their life and understand what they are really postponing. Life is short and time is running out soon, he said as he introduced a “life calendar” to the audience. ”I call this a life calendar. That’s one box for every week of a 90-year life. That’s not that many boxes, especially since we’ve already used a bunch of those. So I think we need to all take a long, hard look at that calendar. We need to think about what we’re really procrastinating on, because everyone is procrastinating on something in life. We need to stay aware of the Instant Gratification Monkey. That’s a job for all of us. And because there’s not that many boxes on there, it’s a job that should probably start today,” he concluded.
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