Inside the mind of a master procrastinator | Tim Urban

(applause)

So in college, I was a government major,
which means,

I had to write a lot of papers.

Now, when a normal student writes
a paper,

they might spread their work
a little like this.

So you know..
(audience laughing)

You get started a bit slowly, but you
get enough done in the first week,

that in some heavier days later on,
everything gets done, things stay civil.

And I would want to do that like that,
that'll be the plan, I would, uh, I would

have it all ready to go, but then
actually the paper would come along,

and then would kind of do this.
(audience laughing)

And that will happen every single paper.
But then came my 90 pages senior thesis,

a paper you are supposed to spend
a year on

I knew for a paper like that, my normal
workflow was not an option,

it was way too bigger project.
So I planned things out, and I decided

that I kind of had to go something
like this,

this is how the year would go,
so i would start off light,

and I will bump it up in the middle
months, and then at the end,

I would kick it up in the high gears
just like a little staircase, how hard could it be?

just walk up the stairs.
(audience laughing)

No big deal, right?
but then, funniest thing happened,

those first few months, they came and went
and I could not quiet do stuff,

so I had an awesome new revised plan,
(audience laughing)

and then,
(audience laughing)

but then those middle months actually
went by,

and I didn't really write words.
And, so we were here!

And then two months turned into
one month, turned into two weeks,

and one day I woke up,
with three days until the deadline!

Still not have written a word, and so
I did the only thing I could,

I wrote 90 pages over 72 hours, pulling
not one but two all nighters;

humans are not supposed to pull
two all nighters;

sprinted across campus,

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

I thought that was the end of everything.
But a week later I get a call

and its the school, and they say:
"Is this Tim Urban?"

and I say: "Yeah?" and they say: " We need
to talk about your thesis."

I say: "Okay?"

and they say: "It's the best
we have ever seen."

(audience laughing)

That did not happen.
(audience laughing)

It was a very,
very bad thesis.

I just wanted to enjoy that one moment,
when all of you thought this guy is

amazing!
(audience laughing)

No, no, it was very, very, bad. Anyway,
today I'm a writer, blogger guy,

I write the blog "weight but wide", and
couple years ago,

I decided to write about procrastination,
my behavior is always perplexed

the non-procrastinator around me,

and I wanted to explain to the
non-procrastinator of the world,

what goes on in the heads of
procrastinators? and why we are

the way we are? Now I had a hypothesis:
that the brains of procrastinators were

actually different than the brains of
other people.

And to test this, I found an MRI lab that
actually let me scan my brain

and the brain of a proven non-
procrastinator, so I can compare them,

and I actually brought them here
to show you today,

and I want you to take a look carefully
to see if you can notice a difference,

and I know if I had a trained known
expert, it is not that obvious

but just take a look, okay? So, here is
the brain of a non-procrastinator.

(audience laughing)
Now, here is my brain. (audience laughing)

There is a difference, both brains have
a rational decision-maker in them,

but the procrastinator's brain also has an
Instant Gratification Monkey. Now,

What does this mean for the
procrastinator? well, means everything

is fine until this happens. So, the
rational decision-maker will make

the rational decision to do something
productive, but the monkey does not like

that plan, so he actually takes the wheel
and he says: "actually let's read

the entire Wikipedia page of the Nancy
Kerrigan-Tonya harding scandal

cause I just remember that that happened."
(audience laughing)

then we are going over to the fridge to
see if there is anything new there

since the 10 minutes ago. After that we
are going on a Youtube spiral

that starts with videos of Richard
Feynman talking about magnets and ends

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

(audience laughing)
Oh that is going to take a while,

so we are not going really to have any
room on the schedule for work today.

Sorry.

Now, what is going on here? The Instant
gratification monkey does not seem

like a guy you want behind the wheel.
He lives entirely in the present moment,

he has no memory of the past, no
knowledge of the future, and he only cares

about two things: easy and fun. Now, in
the animal world that works fine. If you

are a dog, and you spent your whole life
doing nothing other than easy and fun,

you are a huge success.
(audience laughing)

To the monkey, humans are just another
animal species, have to keep well slept

well fed and propagating into the next
generation,

which in tribal times might have worked
O.K., but if you have not noticed, now,

we are not in tribal times, we are in an
advanced civilization and the monkey

does not know what that is. That is why we
have another guy in our brain,

the rational decision-maker, who give us
the ability to do things no other animal

can do.

We can visualize the future, see the big
picture.

We can make long-term plans, and he wants
to put all of that into account,

and he wants to just have us do whatever
makes sense to be doing right now.

Now, sometimes it makes sense to be doing
that are easy and fun, like when you are

having dinner or going to bed or enjoying
well leisure time,

that is why there is an overlap.