To the Best of Our Knowledge: Procrastination

In this hour, we explore the painful costs and unexpected benefits of procrastination. Piers Steel describes himself as a semi-reformed procrastinator. He is an authority on the science of motivation and teaches at the University of Calgary. He's the author of The Procrastination Equation and tells Jim Fleming getting past procrastination is not as easy as it sounds.

Then, Patrician Person is an award-winning Canadian novelist and journalist, whose books include A Brief History of Anxiety...Yours and Mine. In her audio essay she also confesses she is a procrastinator.

Next, Jennifer Baker is a philosopher at the College of Chrleston and the author of a recent essay called Procrastination as Vice. She tells Steve Paulson how a philosopher became interested in procrastination.

After that, Chrisoula Andreou is a philosopher at the University of Utah who also contributed an essay to The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Prorcastination, of which she is co-editor. She talked with Anne Strainchamps about coping with procrastination.

Following that, Geoff Dyer is the author of Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence. We hear Jim Fleming read a passage about schemes for avoiding the writing of it.

And finally, Mark Kingwell is a Canadian philosopher who knows all about the terror of the blank page. He talks with Steve Paulson about a chapter on procrastination from his book Catch and Release: Trout Fishing and the Meaning of Life. [Broadcast Date: January 26, 2011]