Dr. Ferrari, I’m delighted to have you join us this morning. What a timely topic as we begin a new year. This issue of procrastination, I think is a fabulous topic to talk about specifically with somebody, who in the past 25 years has been researching this topic.
Thank you so much for including me this morning and including me in your program. You are correct. It’s a timely processed topic and an issue that arises. It doesn’t ever seem to go away because everybody procrastinates.
I would like to talk about today that not everyone is a procrastinator. There are 20% of men and women who are chronic procrastinators. This is their lifestyle. You are correct. I’ve been studying this topic for a number of years because my interest is trying to understand what are the causes? What are the consequences for these people who are chronic procrastinators?
And then I decided to write my book that came out at the end of 2010 called Still Procrastinating. What I wanted to do was to show the reader that here is what we know are the causes and the consequences and here are the cures based on science. There are so many books out there on procrastination and most of them take the time management problem approach. That just is not going to work.
To tell that chronic procrastinator just do it, would be like saying to a clinically depressed person, cheer up. That’s not going to work. There is something far more involved for why people procrastinate than poor time management.
One of the things that might be a good point Dr. Ferrari to start with is, over all of those years I know that there had been about eight books that you’ve published on this topic.
Actually three scholarly books on this topic and one popular book. I have researched in other domains. It’s eight books but not eight on procrastination. There are books in other areas. I do work on addictions and I do work on sense of community and other areas.