Weve all had the experience of wanting to get a project done but putting it off for later.
This post originally appeared onThe Conversation.
So why do we procrastinate?
Are we built to operate this way at some times?
Or is there something wrong with the way were approaching work?
Or I could think about how unpleasant cleaning can actually beespecially when sharing a house with a toddler.
The Distant Deadline
People are not entirely rational in the way they value things.
The tendency for people to devalue money and other goods based on time is calleddelay discounting.
People would rather lose $17 than wait a few months to get a larger reward.
Other factors also influence subjective value, such as howmuch money someone has recently gained or lost.
The key point is that there is not a perfect match between objective value and subjective value.
Delay discounting is a factor in procrastination because the completion of the project happens in the future.
Studies haverepeatedly shownthat the tendency to procrastinate closely follows economic models of delay discounting.
Furthermore, people who characterize themselves as procrastinatorsshow an exaggerated effect.
They discount the value of getting something done ahead of time even more than other people.
One way to increase the value of completing a task is to make the finish lineseemcloser.
For example,vividly imagining a future reward reduces delay discounting.
This leads to the interesting prediction that people would procrastinate more the harder they expect the work to be.
Opportunity costs make working on something that seems hard feels like a loss.
Sure enough,a group of studiesshows that people procrastinate more on unpleasant tasks.
The source of this appetite can be a bit tricky.
So how does one increase the subjective value of a project?
Jordan Miller-Ziegler is a PhD Candidate in Psychology,University of Oregon.
Image byOivind Hovlandvia Getty.
