The 7th most popular TED talk of all time covers an issue that affects us all:
Procrastination.
In a funny, all too relatable analysis of the human brain, Tim Urban breaks down the interplay of three driving forces in your mind.
- First, there’s the rational decision-maker, who’s long-term oriented and gets things done, but can rarely grab the steering wheel, because of…
- The instant-gratification monkey, who’s entirely engrossed in doing fun and easy things, especially when it’s no time to do them, except when…
- The panic-monster wakes up, who sends the monkey packing for brief periods of time so we can barely get our work done to meet the deadline.
Recapping this ménage à trois, Tim says:
“And this entire situation, with the three characters — this is the procrastinator’s system. It’s not pretty, but in the end, it works.”
To his surprise, readers of his blog, where he shared this theory, did agree, but weren’t nearly as comfortable nor even remotely satisfied with this system.
“These people were writing with intense frustration about what procrastination had done to their lives, about what this Monkey had done to them.”
