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1. LD_73_TimothyPychyl_Interview.mp3
Harry: I am nowspeakingwithTimPitcherwhoisa professoratCarleton University in Ottawa,
Canada and he is a specialist in procrastination. So Tim, thank you very much for
speaking to me.
Tim: I don’t procrastinate, I just studied it.
Harry: Right, exactly. So you are not a procrastination expert you are just a procrastination
enthusiast maybe?
Tim: Of course I have procrastinate inmylife, there were periods in my life when it was the
bane of myexistence like manypeople so I get it from the inside but there are some of
colleagueswhosayhow canyou say this,you don’t procrastinate. Well that’s because I
have studied enough now not to be able to do it
Harry: Well, that’s a very good point. You said something before we started recording that I
wish I was reporting and you promised to say it again. So we were just talking about
time and you said you had a thought about that.
Tim: Yes and just this morning. This isn’t the first time I had this thought but it hit me
profoundlytodaybecause Iwasgoing to do three to four tasks this morning and one of
themhad to be removedand I thought to myself time is a true zero-sum game and the
next essential thing is you don’t know how much of it you are going to get but you are
only going to get so much and it’s not an available resource that way so it is always a
matter of how you chose to use your time which is the bottom line for me.
Harry: Absolutelyand that'sa reallygoodlaunchingpointfor thisbecause odifferentiatorsthat
I try to make withpeople whenI'm tryingtohelpthembe more efficient isthatthere'sa
difference between procrastinating and deferring no answer for me deferring. For me
deferringiswhenyou're puttingsomethingoff to a time that you can actually deal with
it more effectively, to me and I was hoping that you're going to correct me on this, Tim
but procrastination is really about sort of about just putting it under rug because you
justdon't wantto deal withnow and youjustsort of disassociate yourself with the task
Tim: Well, I don’t have to correct you. You hit the nail right on the head. In fact I’ve got a
new graduate student who is going to be doing her research on this concept of active
procrastination. There are some researcherswhodon’t agree withyou, they found this
active procrastinator who delay purposely and they call it active procrastination which
of course is an acting ___(2:30 -unclear). You have defined it correctly that there is
deferral,there isintentionupdates,whileIamgoingto put thisoff its just better for me
to do thislaterand thennothingandthat’sa good thingyoudo iteveryday,youhave to
and thenthere isprocrastinationwhere you have the intention to do it and you should
do it now but as you put so well you push it under the rug because you don’t want to
really you don’t want to you want to feel good now it’s that instant gratification thing.

2. Harry: Yes, okay. So before we even get into the details of procrastination, what got you
interested in procrastination is in the first place? Which is kind of a funny question, I
think.
Tim: I didn’t study procrastination as a graduate student although at times I did it but I did
studyothergraduate students when I did my doctorate research. I actually spent time
studyingdoctor’s across many different departments and I would interview then and I
wouldsaythingslike whatyouare doingand they would say I am kind of sitting around
the research room here and lack and complain about our work, well, what are you
supposed to be doing. I am supposed to be working on my comprehensive exam. So
whyare younot workingonyour comprehensiveexam? Idon’tknow whatto do. Well,
whydon’tyou talkto youradvisor? I can’t let them know that I am not doing anything.
Then I would thought to myself there is a _____( 3:39 - unclear) that’s really thick.
These are really intelligent people saying really silly things. And so I was studying
people’s goal pursuits and I was intent on having a goal pursuit predictable of what
became painfullyobvioustome wasthat we predictedunhappiness with the things we
said we were going to do and didn’t do in a timely way. So I realized that I wanted to
move away from studying goal pursuit to studying what goal pursuit breaks down, and
it’s definitely procrastination.
Harry: Right, okay. So how did that research actually began though? What did you start to
look at first? Like, how or what - I guess there is the how and the why to
procrastination, so what do you start with?
Tim: I start withof a paradox. I had a lotof studentsinterested in this and all my research is
driven by my students but back in the ‘90s one of the first things we did we said you
know what interesting people procrastinate because you are getting rid of something
not interesting,Idon’twantto dothat I wouldratherhave funinsteadandyetwhen we
look at the little bit of research literature out there procrastination seems to be
crowded with negative emotions and we think that why’s is that if you are
procrastination shouldn’t you be feeling food, so we actually did some examples
sampling studies, we put pagers on people and try to catch them at the moment they
are procrastination, not just as general, traits of their procrastination, do you
procrastinate all the time, but if you are procrastinating right now, how do you feel
because we wantto understandhow doyou feel about it when you procrastinated and
lo and behold the negative emotions were no longer called procrastination when you
are actually procrastinating but then again they were not strong positive emotions
eitherparticularlybecausethere wasone emotionthatwasdominantandthat wasguilt
so that is kind of some of the first studies we did with these experience sampling
studies,we were trying to get what people were feeling and thinking when they were
procrastinating but since then we have done lots of different studies and people who
are listingthatmaybe interestingtheymaygoto procrastination.caandyouwill find all
the research that we do.
Harry: Okay,that’san interestingtheoryto it, thatguiltissue thatisnot always associatedwith
procrastination. This is like with dieting or with you know how you act on your
relationship. There is all that guilt but yet it doesn't seem to cause a change it seems
like peoplewhoprocrastinate it'salmost clinical that it gets to this point where people

3. they justcan’t make themselves dothings anymore because they get into this mode of
procrastination and also has does that tie in for you with this, it's not really a question
but concept you know in an eight-hour day the average worker is really doing like two
hours of work so is that active procrastination or is that something else?
Tim: That can just be procrastination, a lot of people like to call it laziness, irresponsibility I
supposedbutitcost huge amountsof moneyto businesseswhenpeople waste timelike
that whentheyare not on task. It’s a lotof agenciesthere. Letme go back to that guilt.
Absolutelywe are stewingoutownjuiceswithprocrastinationandthe guiltis really like
a phenomenonof whatsocial psychologycalledall cognizance ,that’sclassiccognizance
you know you have an intention and your behaviour is not matching that intention so
the gap between your intention and action that defines procrastination needs
cognizance. Asyousaid we don’tdoanythingabout it doesn’t seem to motivate things
and itcouldthat wouldbe a veryideal thingtochange your behaviourwhichmeansthat
you get going but instead we have lots of strategies to reduce cognizance like we
dismissit,itisnot all that important,I’ll fell more likeittomorrow orI’ll workthat under
pressure andall these things are said so that we can feel better about ourselves so we
are trying to reduce the guilt. Now we’ll never completely able to escape our self
deception that way. We do a pretty good job of it and we might have use substances,
we might have had a couple of beers or some other substance of choice. Anything to
get away from that guilt but it is paradoxable to me why we become our own worst
enemy and that’s what keeps me studying procrastination.
Harry: Okay, so you said youkeepstudying it because of that paradox so what can people do
about it or what have you found to be most effective ways for people to overcome
procrastination?
Tim: We can become very strategic and make little baby step even when we haven’t grasp
the whole thingbutI am going to start with what I think we ultimately have to do. I am
going to start with some techniques you can use right away. Ultimately, you have to
come downto what we said earlier, what you thought you wanted me to repeat which
is time is zero-sum game and how are you choosing to do it because to me extension
routes to procrastination is not getting on with life itself. It is a horrible thing. This is
your life whatare yougoingto do withit?To me whenyouwake up and open youreyes
to that, toyour ownsense of agency then you start making choices and then you won’t
stewinyour ownjuicesanymore,youeither do the thing that is the next thing to do or
you bath in it, you said I am taking it right off my list and it has a very zed like quality
there, the emotions of the other masters with the students who seek enlightenment
and the students who are novice, what am I doing he said and the master said do you
finisheatinghisrice?Andhe said okay then wash your bowl. And it relates honestly or
when it comes down to that it is profound that I think has to happen in order to deal
with procrastination. Now, that’s a tall order in a sense because even by using that
storyit has some sense of wisdomorenlightenmentattachedtoitbutI do thinkthere is
some truth init. Now,alongthe wayyou can do lots of trick and techniques and I think
that’s what mindful meditation and practice of any sort brings to you, you act as if you
have this enlightenment and one day you realize it is the practice but for me it always
comes down to getting started so once I make the intention I have to recognize that I

4. am not goingto feel likeitwhenthe time comessothat’s a biglift,amI actuallygoingto
feel like it. Sofirstof all,okayI am justgoingto get started, I am not thinking about the
whole task it’s just the knack of just doing it. It’s just getting started because we
certainlyfoundinourresearchthat once we getstartedit changesour perceptionof the
task.
Evenour early research with the pagers, you know once students got down to the task
of at hand they didn’t say things like, “I am glad I waited for the last minute because I
work so much better under pressure”. They said things like, “This is not as bad as I
thought,I wishIhad started earlier, I could have done a much better job.” So we know
that just getting started is essential and that’s an emotional thing and a bit of a
behavioural strategybutthe cognizance of strategymake the let’s get away from these
vague, bold intentions like I’ll do that task on the weekend and the task is a bit poorly
defined and the weekend is really poorly defined and get down to really precise
intentionimplementationslike whenIfinishedmycoffee onSaturday morningI’mgoing
to do this part of that task and define it precisely, the situation acts and the behaviour
whyto achieve subgoalsz soif youcan add that inyour life justmovingfrombroadgoal
intentionstospecificintentionsyouare goingtohave a whole heapforwardeven if you
haven’tgottentothe pointwhere youhave kind of woken up and smell the coffee and
said it is my life what am I going to do with it today?
Harry: Yes,okay and I'm veryvery much withwhatyou are saying.So forsomething that is like
a large projectbut it’s....and I always make a joke of this, but actually it is very sad but
it’sthat I have seen this now seven times on a client's a to do list which was right book
okay so ...
Tim: Of course. Andyouknow with my students, if I ask one of my graduate students, what
are your doing and they said working on my thesis, I know that they are doing nothing
because it is just too big and broad, but if they say to me oh I am struggling with that
section we were talking about the other day where I was trying to make the transition
fromso and so researchto myideas,Ithink okay you are doing something. So writing a
book that’s good, it’s a very high meaningful goal but we have to always juggle in our
lives,manageabilityand meaning.Meaninglessthings aren’t going to get done because
they are meaningless, things that are not manageable aren’t going to get done even if
theyare evenmeaningful so you always going to have to keep this balance in mind. So
writing a book is very meaningful, it’s connected to one of my core values, what is the
next step? What am I actually going to do today or the next hour and that’s where you
get into implementation intention.
Harry: Okay, right. Then the implementation intention is good in itself of course but on a
systematicorI guess on a logistics level what do you tell people. Is it break it down so
that you know what the next step is, sort of like a ...
Tim: Yes I dobut I try not to, that’s been as a multiple statement around procrastination for
yearsand you think they have a time management problem but they really don’t have
time managementproblem, veryfew people have time management problems. Some
of the research we have done continually show that procrastinators don’t broken
somehowtheydon’treally estimate time badly but they don’t manage their emotions

5. very well so I think that you can break down your tasks but when it comes to that first
part of your task where you have that strong emotion reaction is when you have a six
yearold beside you.Ihave asix year oldalmostseven run around my house and I know
himverywell andI’dsay, “Alex itistime to make your bed,” and he would day, “I don’t
feel like it, I don’t want to”, and I’d say, “Alex I didn’t ask you how you felt, I love you
but that didn’t answer my question, it’s time to make your bed.” And so we have that
six year old alive and well inside of us but we think saying that I don’t feel like it is an
explanation for not doing something and if you stand back from that and realize how
silly it is, it’s kind of enlightening in itself.
Harry: Okay this is great because what I've sort of hit on me a few times or several times
actually isI'm a parent. I have three small boys. My wife stays at home, I work at home
so we’re bothhere a lot with the kids and we have a two-and-a-half-year-old and twin
14 months old and they're all boys. And what I tell people a lot is, it doesn't matter if
I'm tired, it doesn't matter if I'm sick, it doesn't matter if I'm throwing up in the toilet I
still have to feedsomeone,somebodystill hastobe changed somebody, somebody has
to be stopped from falling off the counter. You know like you just have to do it and
that’s okay and that's great actually but it doesn't matter if you don't feel like it that's
totally irrelevant.
Tim: Yes andif we can bringthat to bearthenmost of our liveswe wouldbe muchbetteroff.
In fact we see a lotof procrastinationinstudents,we see itotherplacesinlife of course
but those people thereisnotall that damage give the jobto busy persons because they
are alreadyin motion, and a lot of that too is that they recognize that I don’t have a lot
of time. Anotherview onthisissomethingthatsome peoplecall the unscheduledandit
is a really interesting way to think about your life it is that when we think about next
week, if I said to you, Harry could you do this with me today if you are not a little too
busyand yousaidalrightnextmothwe will do this. Most likely we are going to say yes
and in fact there is a lot of interesting research about our present self and future self
where our future self is like a stranger. You know I don’t care that’s future self, future
self problem.
Harry: Future homework.
Tim: That’s it. You got it. Man I don’t envy that guy. Homework just labelled it so beautiful
there because our brains act differently when you think about present self and future
self. If I think about a stranger, I will treat future self more like a stranger. But on the
otherside the unscheduledisItake a blankcalendarfor next week and I fill in all of the
things that I really have to do, I write down the nitty gritty like brushing my teeth and
showeringbecause thattakestime. Like eventoday,Ihave to run to a vet appointment
for a cat today and I thought to myself gee I am not going to make it for my shower
before this because I have to leave as soon as we are done. So all that have to go in
there and then you get a more realistic attitude of what you really have available for
these other tasks and it kind of put you on edge space much like the busy kern who it
doesn’t matter if I am throwing up or I am feeling sick I still have people to care for. If
youactuallylookat all of the thingsthatare goingon inyour life andthen you got other
tasksthrownin and yousaidI had betterdothat right now, right then because that’s it,
that’sall the time Ihave,I can’t getintothiswishful thinking so I think what happens as

6. a parent,it happenstomanyof us andwe realize we have to step up here. Now what I
want to see people do is to step up to is to ordering their lives even before they are
taking care of somebody else.
Harry: Right,exactlyandof course we can’tapplythat to everythingwe do butin a way we can
because if you are doingwork that's meaningfultoyou,thatyou care about,thenhowis
that not the most important thing, how is that not the essence of your being. I mean
somebodycouldsaylike oh I'm just recording a podcast with you right now and it's just
a podcast but to me this is what I do. The conversation that we're having right now is
value is the value that I get and sharing with the .... you know it is integral to my life.
Tim: Yes,but probablysomebody else will say, Harry he has found something meaningful, I
don’t do meaningful work but that doesn’t matter either we could look at finding
meaning and think that’s really important because I think a job and doing well kind of
thing. But you can also look at it as that, okay, this is my task in front of me, I have
finishedeatingmyrice,Iam goingto washmy bowl andI am goingto do it now so that I
can get on to other things. Even Viktor Frankl he spent time in a nutty concentration
camp and when he wrote his autobiography he wrote about procrastination and that
blew me away because I thought he got other things to say here but what he gets like
everymajorreligiongetswiththe notionof smartisthatwastingtime isa sinagainstlife
itself because itissopreciousbecause there isnothingmore precious you are going get
more than time and so if you are doing something then get it done and this is what
ViktorFrankl wrote andI will goback to whathe said,“I have learned to do the difficult
jobfirstbecause that’swhenIhave the energy. Ilearn to get things done so that I have
time forthe importantthingsinlife.”Let’sgoback to the example of beingaparent,not
only you realize you have to care for your kids whether you head is in the toilet or not
but you don’t want to put off your stuff in the day and then look at your children later
and say I don’t have time to play I have to work, because that’s the important thing in
life, right. So even if the task at hand isn’t intrinsically meaningful, like washing your
bowl aftereatingyour rice, getting it done so that you can get on with the other things
that do reflectyourvaluesandyouragency,that’swhyyoudo it quickly, that’s why you
do it right and that’s why you don’t stew in your own juices
Harry: So that's rightand that's the thing. If somethingisanobstacle inyourway like washing
the bowl (we are going to keep that as an example) is an obstacle for five seconds of
your life orit'sjustsomethingthatitwill pile upin the dishes and you have to deal with
it later, that laterisgoingto pissyouoff and you're not goingto sleep well and actually
it's a butterfly effect some ways
Tim: It is,yesit is,butit seemslike asillyexamplebecause we have takenthe same story but
quite franklyIam sure there are listenerswhose dishes are sitting on their counter and
theyare sayingIdon’tfeel like it,justwhatyoudescribedandwhathappenthe nextday
they are going to pile up and then they are going to be very hard to wash because
everythingisreallystuckon,itsdriedonand what was a 2-second job becomes a much
longerjob. Andsoif I go back tomy story withmyson whenhe toldme I don’tfeel lime
making my bed, I’d said to him, “Hey Alex you know what I will give you a dollar if you
can count to 10 before I got your bed made but you have to count one thousand one
one thousandtwo.” He said,“All right.” He is motivated externally by the thought of a

7. dollar,andhe starts to count and I made the bed, he doesn’t get to 6, the bed is made,
he learned something deeply important. You spend more time moaning and groaning
and thinking about a task than what a lot of them take to get done and if you can get
them done in that timely way, they don’t go that chaos, that butterfly effect that we
have when that happened when we let these little things piled up in our heads.
Harry: Oh, yes. Are you familiar with motivational interviewing at all?
Tim: No.
Harry: This is like another concept. I have recently learnt about this. They are making a bad
example as a good example for and I have heard this and loved it. So with the child
example whowouldn’tmake their bed, what motivational interviewing would have to
do isask twoquestionsand the firstquestionis:(Well my son’s name is Ben, my oldest
son isBen) Ben,ona scale of 1 to 10, 1 beingtotallynotready, doesn’t want to do it at
all and 10 being you are really excited into doing it right now, how would you rate
yourself as far as your willingness to make your bed? And you know a flipping child or
you know would say well I am a two then. And so then the second question is: Okay,
so whydidn't you say that you were a one? Which basically forces them to justify and
put it into their own thoughts on their own terms like well you know basically sort of
give themsome differentperspective on that andapparentlyit'svery rare for someone
to say they're one in that situation because that's just being ridiculous. So I really like
that and I think that that in a way brings you back to your present self, it's like well it's
not a matterof thenor now,it’sreallylike whyamI not ready or am I actually really am
read, I mightas well just do it. But I have another example for you, which the washing
the dishes isa greatone butthisis a personal one thatI findhappens a lot is every time
I go into the bathroom, you know one of the guest bathroom or the main bathroom at
our house and maybe I'm going to wash my hands, maybe I'm going to use the
bathroom but if there islittle orno toiletpaperleft it'sveryveryeasy to just walk away
and say man I don't want to go get another roll of toilet paper from downstairs and
change that, but of course then your future self has to do with that time that you go to
the bathroom and you're sitting there and then there's no toilet paper so ...
Tim: I neverdothat. I can getimpatientwithmyownpartnerwhomakessure she islike that,
the dish soap is almost done, not completely done but not to refill it then when you
actually have a minute,youdon’tknow whatfuture sense is going to be facing, present
self reallydoes have a moment to do that but present self said I want to do something
else,Idon’twanto do that and that visitareaction that I don’t want to do that is worth
exploringbecause what does it mean, what are you going to do instead, are you really
havingso much fun doing whatever else it is, if you can just get into the habit of doing
things right away, what happens is that you are allowed to be spontaneous later
because you are without guilt because you’ve got everything, all your docks are in a
row,but mostto the time people come backtoand sayI wouldn’t wantto be as uptight
as that like theyare alwaysdoingthings on time, you know what my procrastination is,
my spontaneityandIsaidheyit’sactually just the opposite. Procrastination weighs on
like it’s the world and it’s like a monkey on your back and when real freedom offers
itself toyoucan’t because youputyourself behinddeeper. SoI love yourexample,it’sa
mundane one but I think it worth explanation of why is it when you look at a simple

8. task like I can go get another roll of toilet paper we have that vista I don’t feel like it. I
think it is hard wired into us somehow
Harry: And then again so as to not over trivialize this because it is not to me but in that
situationwhere Idon'twantto.... because we keepourtoiletpaperin the basement so
it's not really no big deal ....but I don't I don't want to go get that roll, but when I do I
actually feel, as little as that is, I feel like I accomplished something in a way.
Tim: The progress,withall thisfromresearch,that a little progressonourgoal fuelsour well
beingandactual thisisone of the few places we see upward spiral well being because
that little tinysuccessastrivial asitmay seemsspansthe nextthing,there isnopanacea
here but it is the opposite of the downward spiral of procrastination and guilt. It’s jut
making the right choice.
Harry: Absolutely. So the last question I would like to ask is what are your top three personal
tips for being more effective, not necessarily overcoming procrastination, maybe, but
just what are your top three things for being more effective in your day?
Tim: That’s a goodquestion,notmanypeople ask me that question. I am a plan-full person,
so one of my first is that I usually use a Day Timer, actually it’s on the computering on
my iPhone and iPod and I actually colour code all the different parts of my life, like
within my work life I’ve got research, teaching and administration those are different
colours. I’ve gotpersonal things,recreation,kidsrelatedthingsandconsultingandbook
relatedthingsandall those are differentcolours. Ican do a forensicaudit of my week. I
can lookat themand I can lookat that weekandsee how much recreationdidIdid, was
there a lot of time with the kids, what’s the balance between research and
administration. So, one of my practices is to be plan-full and also do a forensic audit
constantly. AmI livingthe life Iwant to live? Am I getting the time for recreation that I
want? Am I making time for the balance between teaching and research that I might
want. All of those things and it’s a very good tool for me so that’s one of them.
The next one is the planning cognitive level. The most important part for me is the
affective part about feeling like it. I am a big one for building good habitual theme so
that things become nice so that they don’t take mental energy but it takes me a lot of
energytoget there,everythingfromflossingyourteeth,a habit that I can never miss to
doing regular sit ups and push ups and strength exercise for my core, so even if I don’t
take aerobicexercise Ialwayshave thatcore strengthand honestlyeventhoughI do my
push ups and sit ups, back exercises every day before I shower that’s my
implementationintention. In situation act before I can step down into the show I step
downand dothose core exercises. SoIhave got that implementation intention and my
vista reaction is I don’t feel like it, not today. So I always battle that with Tim just get
started and a really mundane example of that is that I was doing push ups and back
exercisesreallyeffectivelybutIwasskippingmysit ups and so to break that ice all I had
to do was go from being on my knees which is the way I do my back exercises and all I
didwas roll overonmy back, I didn’tthink about doing the sit ups, I just said when you
finishthisinsituationx whenyourbackexercise isdone roll over on your back and now
I am ina positionwhere I might as well do the sit ups. You see how I am very strategic
because you have to find the fin age of the wedges for you to be able to really build

9. habitsyouwant. Sofor me,that’ssuperimportantthat...youknow some people lookat
and sayI reallyadmire yourself-discipline. Youknow it’snotso muchself-discipline,it’s
just really building really good habits. It may be take a little discipline to build those
habits but once you do life become so easy.
So the first one is the plan-fullness, the next one is creating those habits but always, I
guess the bottom line to all of it for me is to just get started. You know I will face
anything and then I would go I don’t feel like it, I don’t want to. I know different than
any otherpersonthatI know I am not the most super-motivated man in the world but I
do know what my goals are and so when I get to that point where I made an intention
and I go I have thisreactionI don’twantto do it,I hate this and I don’t even know what
I am talking about really I’m just feeling it, I said let’s just get started and that has
changed my world
Harry: That's awesome,that'sreallyawesome.Okay, so we are going to have links to yourself
and the show, but where's the best place for people to find out more about you.
Tim: As I mentionedearlierwww.procrastination.ca . I mentioned that when you asked me
about my research and there is so much in there. But if you got there you won’t just
find my research you will find a link to my blog on psychology today, so if you want to
read available procrastination research, I just been writing about that for years. I just
readresearchand summarize it and try to find the main take away points. Unlike you I
like topodcastI startedback in 2005 and an onoff again podcastbut there isa lot there.
Harry: I know. I love your podcasts.
Tim: Thanks very much. And they range from interviews to personal stuff, so if you go to
www.procrastination.ca you will find all of that.
Harry: Wonderful Tim.Thankyouso much. Thishas beena reallywonderful conversationfor
me and I really appreciate your time.
Tim: And for me too. Most of the time I have been staring at your handsome face here and
youhave such a warm, it’sa nice picture of you even though it’s one of those snapshot
from my computer camera but it felt like I match it and that’s a nice thing Harry.
Harry: Thank you very much.
Tim: Alright take care.