I’m a Victim of this Accusation

Damn! I feel awful about what I’m doing. I was browsing the Web then I saw a psychological test of procrastination. I was about to do the survey but before that I went through a blog introducing the test. It goes like this.

 

"Continued research into procrastination should not be delayed, especially because its prevalence appears to be growing."

 

Why is it growing? Because workers–like you, Dear Reader?–have less structure in their jobs. Steel writes:

"As structure continues to decrease, the opportunity for workers to procratinate will concomitantly increase. Futhermore, the prevalence and availability of temptation, for example, in the forms of computer gaming or internet messaging, should continue to exacerbate the problem of procrastination. There are simply more activities with desirable features competing for our attentions."

 

Like on-line surveys. Professor Steel sees a clear selection bias in the kind of person who takes his survey. "Unfortunately," he told me, "it appears that procrastinators are using my procrastination test to procrastinate, somewhat skewing the results. There is a perverse irony in procrastinating by taking a procrastination test that appeals to people, like reading a time management book while you should be working."

 

Then the author of the blog ended his post with this sentence, "… How often during the day do you post on a blog in order to avoid work?"

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