Week 4 Discussion: Procrastination

I’m working on a English exercise and need support.

• Initial Response Due: Wednesday by 11:59pm
• Response to at least TWO Classmates Due: Friday by 11:59pm

For our TED discussion this week, I want us to discuss procrastination. Mainly because this class is so short, it doesn’t give us a lot of options to procrastinate, and we are writing Essay 1 this week, and I want us to discuss and develop tools that will make us successful writers.

How many of us procrastinate or view ourselves as master procrastinators? I know I do. Most of my life as an undergrad student I must say was spent focused under the crunch time, right up against a deadline.

After watching the following very humorous TED Talk by Tim Urban, please answer the following questions:

1. What does Urban claim about procrastinators? Why does he think people really procrastinate?
2. What does Urban think we should do about procrastination? Does he offer any solutions?
3. Could you identify with what Urban says here? How often do you procrastinate? Why do you think you do it? Why can’t you break the habit?
4. What was your biggest takeaway or AHA moment from this Talk?

“Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator” | Tim Urban
(Click Here for the Transcript of Urban’s Talk: Transcript of Urban.docx) attached below

this is one of my classmate respond:

Norma Milo (She/Her)

1:07pm

Jul 6 at 1:07pm

1. In the Ted Talk by Tim Urban, we are told that he thinks there is no such thing as the non-procrastinator. Instead he classifies people into two groups. Those who are good with deadlines and those who are not. He furthers his reasoning by explaining that everyone procrastinates on something and often it is a goal that has no deadline. He talks about the parts of our brains that contribute to procrastinating and meeting deadlines. Urban refers to those parts as the Rational Decision Maker, Instant Gratification Monkey, and the Panic Monster. He mentions that the Rational Decision Maker and the Instant Gratification Monkey overlap and that the Panic Monster only comes out when the fan is about to get messy. The reason we procrastinate is because of the monkey and monster that dwell within our brains. The monkey tells us we need more fun in our lives and that there will be time later to spend with the boring things that need to be accomplished. Meanwhile, the monster is the back up plan for when the monkey leads us astray. We know it is going to happen, so we put in a kill switch.
2. Urban tells us to recognize that we are all procrastinators in one way or another. To rethink your definition of what it is to procrastinate. Delaying work on deadlines is a definite form, but so is taking care of health issues, maintaining household chores, or even visiting family. We tend to see the future as something unrealized, so it does not matter until it becomes the present. Vague deadline like ‘down the road’ enable us to not actively do anything. One suggestion he had for dealing with this is to create a visual aid by creating a little box for each week of a 90-year-old life and marking off the ones that are used. I think that what is left will never seem like enough time.
3. I watched this Ted Talk when it was first released on the request of my best friend. At the time I was looking at it for an explanation on why my friend would behave the way he did. Now that I live with him, I get to see everything he procrastinates on and it shocks me! He gets things done, but only just barely. After watching the talk today, I applied it to myself and agree with the speaker about how we are all procrastinators. There are things that I put off because I find them too difficult. I put off things that do not have deadlines all the time. I put off working out and I ignore calls from family. I delay talking about anything relating to personal feelings because it is hard. I think I assume that it will work itself out.
4. My AHA moment was in the application of what Urban was talking about to how I operate in my life. The knowledge that while I do well with deadlines, I am horrible without them. This is something I want to work on because I would like to reach old age and not have regrets for the things I did not do.