Dr. Timothy A. Pychyl, associate professor of psychology and director of the Procrastination Research Group (Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada), provides a series of short talks, interviews and question/answer podcasts that explain why we procrastinate and what we can do about it. An award winning educator, Dr. Pychyl challenges his listeners to explore their daily choices to act or postpone acting on their intentions. Do we head to the gym as intended, or slouch back on the couch thinking "I'll feel more like a workout tomorrow"? Do we tackle the task now, or do we avoid it arguing to ourselves that "I work better under pressure"? From losing 10 pounds to changing personal habits, Pychyl, a personality psychologist, focuses on the breakdown of intentional action - a problem commonly called procrastination. This series expands on three main themes: 1) irrational delay that sabotages personal productivity, 2) personality attributes that contribute to self-defeating behaviours, and 3) situational factors that undermine our ability to take or sustain action...
http://iprocrastinate.libsyn.com
Quirks of the Brain: Procrastination's Perfect Storm
Hey, a second podcast for November 10th. Yes, I'm trying to make up for my absence last week :-) In this short podcast, I discuss some summary statements related to neuroscience that describe what David Rock calls "quirks of our brains." I think these quirks of our stone-age brain in the modern world help explain why we're vulnerable to self-regulation failure.
If you want to read David Rock's original posting on this topic, check out his posting on Psychology Today for August 30, 2009. Here's my blog posting in reply to his writing. It may interest you, as I provide links to each of the topics I mention in the podcast (in case you want to follow up on one topic in more detail).
As always, you can keep up with our research at procrastination.ca