Until I started looking into this, I did not realize that procrastination was such a fertile field of study for so many people and that there were so many types of procrastinators procrastinating in so many ways.

Nor did I realize how much money it can cost us.

How? By not putting away money for retirement, delaying attending to medical needs until they become much more serious, going on last-minute holiday shopping jaunts that run up credit cards because we don’t have time to hunt for bargains and, as many of us have discovered, waiting too long to sell stock.

The average American tax procrastinator, for example, paid an extra $400 because of mistakes made by rushing, resulting in $473 million in overpayments in 2002, said Piers Steel, an associate professor of human resources and organizational dynamics at the University of Calgary. He is writing a book on the subject, “The Procrastination Equation,” (Collins) to be published next year.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Psychology

1. selah wrote: The irony, off course, is that I SHOULD BE cleaning my house for the Super Bowl party, but instead I am reading this article…. January 31, 5:56 pm | [comment link]

2. libraryjim wrote: I thought about replying to this earlier, then thought, oh, I can do that later. February 1, 11:28 am | [comment link]

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