The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing
By:
Sign Up Now!
Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title.
Learn about membership options,
or view our freely available titles.
- Synopsis
- This is not a book for Bill Gates. Or Hillary Clinton, or Steven Spielberg. Clearly they have no trouble getting stuff done. For the great majority of us, though, what a comfort to discover that we’re not wastrels and slackers, but doers . . . in our own way. It may sound counterintuitive, but according to philosopher John Perry, you can accomplish a lot by putting things off. He calls it “structured procrastination”:In 1995, while not working on some project I should have been working on, I began to feel rotten about myself. But then I noticed something. On the whole, I had a reputation as a person who got a lot done and made a reasonable contribution. . . . A paradox. Rather than getting to work on my important projects, I began to think about this conundrum. I realized thatI was what I call a structured procrastinator: a person who gets a lot done by not doing other things.Celebrating a nearly universal character flaw, The Art of Procrastination is a wise, charming, compulsively readable book—really, a tongue-in-cheek argument of ideas. Perry offers ingenious strategies, like the defensive to-do list (“1. Learn Chinese . . .”) and task triage. He discusses the double-edged relationship between the computer and procrastination—on the one hand, it allows the procrastinator to fire off a letter or paper at the last possible minute; on the other, it’s a dangerous time suck (Perry counters this by never surfing until he’s already hungry for lunch). Or what may be procrastination’s greatest gift: the chance to accomplish surprising, wonderful things by not sticking to a rigid schedule. For example, Perry wrote this book by avoiding the work he was supposed to be doing—grading papers and evaluating dissertation ideas. How lucky for us.
- Copyright:
- 2012
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- Book Size:
- 112 Pages
- ISBN-13:
- 9780761175001
- Related ISBNs:
- 9780761171676
- Publisher:
- Workman Publishing Company
- Date of Addition:
- 05/16/23
- Copyrighted By:
- Workman Publishing
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Self-Help, Psychology
- Reading Age:
- 18 and up
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.