Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator | Tim Urban | TED

0:12 So in college, I was a government major,

0:16 which means I had to write a lot of papers.

0:19 Now, when a normal student writes a paper,

0:21 they might spread the work out a little like this.

0:23 So, you know— (Laughter) you get started maybe a little slowly,

0:28 but you get enough done in the first week that, with some

0:31 heavier days later on, everything gets done, things stay civil.

0:34 (Laughter) And I would want to do that like that.

0:38 That would be the plan.

0:39 I would have it all ready to go, but then, actually,

0:42 the paper would come along, and then I would kind of do this.

0:46 (Laughter) And that would happen every single paper.

0:51 But then came my 90-page senior thesis,

0:55 a paper you're supposed to spend a year on.

0:57 And I knew for a paper like that, my normal work flow was not an option.

1:01 It was way too big a project.

1:02 So I planned things out, and I decided I kind of had to go something like this.

1:07 This is how the year would go.

1:09 So I'd start off light, and I'd bump it up in the middle months,

1:13 and then at the end,

1:14 I would kick it up into high gear just like a little staircase.

1:17 How hard could it be to walk up the stairs?

1:20 No big deal, right?

1:23 But then, the funniest thing happened.

1:24 Those first few months?

1:26 They came and went, and I couldn't quite do stuff.

1:29 So we had an awesome new revised plan.

1:31 (Laughter) And then— (Laughter) But then those middle months

1:37 actually went by, and I didn't really write words, and so we were here.

1:43 And then two months turned into one month, which turned into two weeks.

1:47 And one day I woke up with three days until the deadline,

1:53 still not having written a word,

1:55 and so I did the only thing I could: I wrote 90 pages over 72 hours,

2:00 pulling not one but two all-nighters— humans are

2:03 not supposed to pull two all-nighters— sprinted across campus,

2:08 dove in slow motion, and got it in just at the deadline.

2:11 I thought that was the end of everything.

2:14 But a week later I get a call, and it's the school.

2:17 And they say, "Is this Tim Urban?" And I say,

2:20 "Yeah." And they say, "We need to talk about your thesis." And I say,

2:24 "OK." And they say, "It's the best one

2:28 we've ever seen." (Laughter) (Applause) That did not happen.

2:38 (Laughter) It was a very, very bad thesis.

2:43 (Laughter) I just wanted to enjoy that one moment when all of you thought,

2:49 "This guy is amazing!" (Laughter) No, no, it was very, very bad.

2:55 Anyway, today I'm a writer-blogger guy.

2:58 I write the blog Wait But Why.

3:00 And a couple of years ago, I decided to write about procrastination.

3:04 My behavior has always perplexed the non-procrastinators around me,

3:07 and I wanted to explain to the non-procrastinators

3:10 of the world what goes on in the heads of procrastinators,

3:13 and why we are the way we are.

3:14 Now, I had a hypothesis that the brains of procrastinators

3:17 were actually different than the brains of other people.

3:21 And to test this, I found an MRI lab that actually let

3:24 me scan both my brain and the brain of a proven non-procrastinator,

3:29 so I could compare them.

3:30 I actually brought them here to show you today.

3:32 I want you to take a look carefully to see if you can notice a difference.

3:36 I know that if you're not a trained brain expert,

3:38 it's not that obvious, but just take a look, OK?

3:40 So here's the brain of a non-procrastinator.

3:43 (Laughter) Now...

3:48 here's my brain.

3:50 (Laughter) There is a difference.

3:57 Both brains have a Rational Decision-Maker in them,

4:00 but the procrastinator's brain also has an Instant Gratification Monkey.

4:05 Now, what does this mean for the procrastinator?

4:07 Well, it means everything's fine until this happens.

4:09 [This is a perfect time to get some work done.] [Nope!] So

4:12 the Rational Decision-Maker will make

4:14 the rational decision to do something productive,

4:17 but the Monkey doesn't like that plan,

4:19 so he actually takes the wheel, and he says, "Actually,

4:21 let's read the entire Wikipedia page

4:23 of the Nancy Kerrigan/ Tonya Harding scandal,

4:25 because I just remembered that that happened.

4:28 (Laughter) Then— (Laughter) Then we're going to go over to the fridge,

4:33 to see if there's anything new in there since 10 minutes ago.

4:36 After that, we're going to go on a YouTube spiral that starts

4:39 with videos of Richard Feynman talking about magnets and ends much,

4:43 much later with us watching interviews with Justin Bieber's mom.

4:47 (Laughter) "All of that's going to take a while,

4:51 so we're not going to really have room on the schedule for any work today.

4:54 Sorry!" (Sigh) Now, what is going on here?

5:03 The Instant Gratification Monkey does not seem

5:05 like a guy you want behind the wheel.

5:07 He lives entirely in the present moment.

5:09 He has no memory of the past, no knowledge of the future,

5:12 and he only cares about two things: easy and fun.

5:16 Now, in the animal world, that works fine.

5:19 If you're a dog and you spend your whole

5:21 life doing nothing other than easy and fun things, you're a huge success!

5:25 (Laughter) And to the Monkey, humans are just another animal species.

5:32 You have to keep well-slept, well-fed and propagating into the next generation,

5:36 which in tribal times might have worked OK.

5:38 But, if you haven't noticed, now we're not in tribal times.

5:41 We're in an advanced civilization, and the Monkey does not know what that is.

5:45 Which is why we have another guy in our brain, the Rational Decision-Maker,

5:50 who gives us the ability to do things no other animal can do.

5:53 We can visualize the future.

5:55 We can see the big picture.

5:57 We can make long-term plans.

5:58 And he wants to take all of that into account.

6:02 And he wants to just have us do whatever makes sense to be doing right now.

6:06 Now, sometimes it makes sense to be doing things that are easy and fun,

6:10 like when you're having dinner or going

6:11 to bed or enjoying well-earned leisure time.

6:14 That's why there's an overlap.

6:15 Sometimes they agree.

6:17 But other times, it makes much more sense

6:20 to be doing things that are harder and less pleasant,

6:24 for the sake of the big picture.

6:25 And that's when we have a conflict.

6:28 And for the procrastinator, that conflict tends to end a certain way every time,

6:31 leaving him spending a lot of time in this orange zone,

6:35 an easy and fun place that's entirely out of the Makes Sense circle.

6:39 I call it the Dark Playground.

6:42 (Laughter) Now, the Dark Playground is a place

6:47 that all of you procrastinators out there know very well.

6:50 It's where leisure activities happen at times when

6:53 leisure activities are not supposed to be happening.

6:56 The fun you have in the Dark Playground isn't actually fun,

6:59 because it's completely unearned, and the air is filled with guilt, dread,

7:03 anxiety, self-hatred— all of those good procrastinator feelings.

7:06 And the question is, in this situation, with the Monkey behind the wheel,

7:10 how does the procrastinator ever get himself over here to this blue zone,

7:13 a less pleasant place, but where really important things happen?

7:17 Well, turns out the procrastinator has a guardian angel,

7:22 someone who's always looking down on him and watching over

7:25 him in his darkest moments— someone called the Panic Monster.

7:28 (Laughter) Now, the Panic Monster is dormant most of the time,

7:39 but he suddenly wakes up anytime a deadline

7:42 gets too close or there's danger of public embarrassment,

7:45 a career disaster or some other scary consequence.

7:47 And importantly, he's the only thing the Monkey is terrified of.

7:51 Now, he became very relevant in my life pretty recently,

7:56 because the people of TED reached out to me about

7:59 six months ago and invited me to do a TED Talk.

8:01 (Laughter) Now, of course, I said yes.

8:08 It's always been a dream of mine to have done a TED Talk in the past.

8:12 (Laughter) (Applause) But in the middle of all this excitement,

8:26 the Rational Decision-Maker seemed to have something else on his mind.

8:29 He was saying, "Are we clear on what we just accepted?

8:32 Do we get what's going to be now happening one day in the future?

8:35 We need to sit down and work

8:36 on this right now." And the Monkey said, "Totally agree,

8:39 but let's just open Google Earth and zoom in to the bottom of India,

8:42 like 200 feet above the ground,

8:44 and scroll up for two and a half hours til we get to the top of the country,

8:47 so we can get a better feel for India."

8:49 (Laughter) So that's what we did that day.

8:56 (Laughter) As six months turned into four and then two and then one,

9:04 the people of TED decided to release the speakers.

9:07 And I opened up the website, and there was my face staring right back at me.

9:11 And guess who woke up?

9:13 (Laughter) So the Panic Monster starts losing his mind,

9:19 and a few seconds later, the whole system's in mayhem.

9:22 (Laughter) And the Monkey— remember,

9:28 he's terrified of the Panic Monster— boom, he's up the tree!

9:31 And finally, finally, the Rational Decision-Maker can take the wheel

9:35 and I can start working on the talk.

9:37 Now, the Panic Monster explains all

9:40 kinds of pretty insane procrastinator behavior,

9:43 like how someone like me could spend two weeks

9:45 unable to start the opening sentence of a paper,

9:49 and then miraculously find the unbelievable work ethic

9:52 to stay up all night and write eight pages.

9:56 And this entire situation,

9:57 with the three characters— this is the procrastinator's system.

10:02 It's not pretty, but in the end, it works.

10:05 This is what I decided to write about on the blog a couple of years ago.

10:09 When I did, I was amazed by the response.

10:12 Literally thousands of emails came in, from all

10:15 different kinds of people from all over the world,

10:17 doing all different kinds of things.

10:19 These are people who were nurses, bankers, painters,

10:22 engineers and lots and lots of PhD students.

10:24 (Laughter) And they were all writing, saying the same thing:

10:29 "I have this problem too." But what struck me was the contrast

10:32 between the light tone of the post and the heaviness of these emails.

10:36 These people were writing with intense frustration

10:40 about what procrastination had done to their lives,

10:42 about what this Monkey had done to them.

10:46 And I thought about this, and I said, well,

10:50 if the procrastinator's system works, then what's going on?

10:53 Why are all of these people in such a dark place?

10:55 Well, it turns out that there's two kinds of procrastination.

10:59 Everything I've talked about today,

11:01 the examples I've given, they all have deadlines.

11:04 And when there's deadlines,

11:05 the effects of procrastination are contained to the short

11:07 term because the Panic Monster gets involved.

11:10 But there's a second kind of procrastination

11:12 that happens in situations when there is no deadline.

11:14 So if you wanted a career where you're a self-starter— something in the arts,

11:18 something entrepreneurial— there's no deadlines on those things at first,

11:22 because nothing's happening, not until you've gone out and done

11:25 the hard work to get momentum, get things going.

11:27 There's also all kinds of important things outside

11:29 of your career that don't involve any deadlines,

11:32 like seeing your family or exercising and taking care of your health,

11:35 working on your relationship or getting

11:37 out of a relationship that isn't working.

11:39 Now if the procrastinator's only mechanism of doing

11:43 these hard things is the Panic Monster,

11:45 that's a problem, because in all of these non-deadline situations,

11:49 the Panic Monster doesn't show up.

11:51 He has nothing to wake up for, so the effects of procrastination,

11:54 they're not contained; they just extend outward forever.

11:57 And it's this long-term kind of procrastination that's much

12:01 less visible and much less talked about than the funnier,

12:05 short-term deadline-based kind.

12:06 It's usually suffered quietly and privately.

12:10 And it can be the source of a huge amount of long-term unhappiness, and regrets.

12:16 And I thought, that's why those people are emailing,

12:19 and that's why they're in such a bad place.

12:21 It's not that they're cramming for some project.

12:24 It's that long-term procrastination has made them feel like a spectator,

12:28 at times, in their own lives.

12:30 The frustration is not that they couldn't achieve their dreams;

12:33 it's that they weren't even able to start chasing them.

12:36 So I read these emails and I had a little

12:39 bit of an epiphany— that I don't think non-procrastinators exist.

12:45 That's right— I think all of you are procrastinators.

12:49 Now, you might not all be a mess, like some of us,

12:53 (Laughter) and some of you may have a healthy relationship with deadlines,

12:58 but remember: the Monkey's sneakiest trick is when the deadlines aren't there.

13:03 Now, I want to show you one last thing.

13:05 I call this a Life Calendar.

13:08 That's one box for every week of a 90-year life.

13:13 That's not that many boxes,

13:14 especially since we've already used a bunch of those.

13:18 So I think we need to all take a long, hard look at that calendar.

13:24 We need to think about what we're really procrastinating

13:27 on, because everyone is procrastinating on something in life.

13:32 We need to stay aware of the Instant Gratification Monkey.

13:37 That's a job for all of us.

13:40 And because there's not that many boxes on there,

13:42 it's a job that should probably start today.

13:45 Well, maybe not today, but...

13:48 (Laughter) You know.

13:51 Sometime soon.

13:53 Thank you.

13:54 (Applause)