Research suggests that about one-half of us will experience, in our life time, an event so traumatic, so disastrous, that it will meet criteria A for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Knowing that fact, then why is it that most of us do not prepare for disasters?

Not everyone who procrastinates in starting a task or project procrastinates in completing it and vice versa. A recent study revealed some interesting patterns in the task characteristics that seem to affect one form of procrastination - delaying the start or delaying completion - but not the other.

Addressing this topic generally, the immortal Dagwood Bumstead once claimed: "You can't teach people to be lazy--either they have it, or they don't." So what is laziness anyway? Is it about being slow to do something (what we typically call procrastination)? . . . Or about doing something slowly? . . . Or about not doing it at all? . . . Or, finally, is it about not sufficiently wanting to do something? And if this last alternative is true, when we label someone lazy are we really talking about that person's being indolent, sluggish, or slothful? Or is there something else going on that hasn't yet been appreciated?

When it comes to many of our tasks, keeping the seat of our pants on the seat of our chair is a necessary first step to getting the job done. Once we get up and leave that chair, we leave our work too. I often advocate this to my students as a basic strategy if not an essential volitional skill to stay put and do their work. The thing is, a student who just read my last blog said that sometimes this backfires, and he ends up procrastinating even more. Why?

Today, I was involved in an all-day event sponsored by gctraining.ca. The focus was on "Finding Joy in Life: Living each day to the fullest." I spoke about procrastination and how it serves to undermine our well-being. Patch Adams spoke about laughter, choice and living a life of joy. I asked Patch what he thought of a potential gap between intention and action. Here's what he said.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked a simple question in an online survey here on my blog: To what extent are you procrastinating right now by reading these blogs? The data continue to come in, but the trend isn't changing, so I think it's time to discuss the results.

The conversation today was fascinating, as it went in so many directions. I wanted to take a few minutes tonight to reflect on a few of the themes and a couple of the emails that I've had in reply to today's broadcast. There's no doubt about it, it's a Procrast-i-Nation!

If you're interested in hearing more about procrastination, tune into NPR Talk of the Nation today at 3 p.m. ET. Joining me will be Dr. John Perry (Stanford), author of the essay "Structured Procrastination." I'll write more after the call-in portion of the show.

There's more than one type of procrastination. We can needlessly delay tasks - behavioral procrastination. We can also needlessly delay making decisions - decisional procrastination. A recent study indicates that both behavioral and decisional procrastination are related to maladaptive beliefs known as metacognitions.

Success breeds success. The rich get richer. That's not news. What may surprise you is what it means to get off to a good start. Here's a study that demonstrates how goal attainment and project progress leads to an upward spiral of happiness and success.

Sometimes things aren't just moving slowly. They're not moving at all. What are the effects of lack of progress in our goal pursuit?

I’m curious. Are you procrastinating right now? Is reading these blogs part of your procrastination? I’m not judging, just curious. Take the anonymous poll, and I’ll post the results in a couple of weeks.

While we all desire to reach or release our full potential, we often face deep internal struggles with perfectionism, excessive self-doubt, lack of persistence, self-depreciation and procrastination. Here's a Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy approach that may help.

Chronic procrastinators spend less preparation time on tasks at which they're likely to succeed and more time on projects likely to fail, underestimate the overall time required to complete a task, spend less time searching for information needed to complete tasks, start tasks at the last minute, report difficulties in structuring their time and view time use as personally less meaningful. 

So, procrastination is about time?

Wisdom
a) accumulated philosophic or scientific learning - knowledge; b) ability to discern inner qualities and relationships - insight; c) good sense - judgment. In short, wisdom entails knowledge, insight, and judgment. What can we say about wisdom and procrastination? Can it be sagacious delay?

Procrastination is NOT a time management problem. However, if you're procrastinating, chances are you're managing your time very poorly. Why? It's because you haven't established what's important in your life - your purpose and meaning.

Have you ever procrastinated? Of course you have. So, you've got to watch this YouTube Video - Procrastination. It will make you smile. It will make you think.

Procrastination is writing thank you letters, it's not writing thank you letters. Procrastination is . . .

Our ideal self is the person we want to be. Our ought self is our understanding of what others want us to be - what we ought to be and do. Then there is our actual self. What happens when our actual self doesn't match the ideal or ought selves?

Hope - a confident feeling about what will happen in the future.  And a sentiment related to lower procrastination.

This quote is from William Butler Yeats (Poet, 1865-1939). It captures what lies at the heart of authentic engagement - fire. As an educator, I've learned a great deal about pedagogical pyromania. In fact, it's my passion.