Sunday, January 18, 2009

Future selves and procrastination

I'm wondering if I'd manage my time more efficiently and procrastinate less if I saw my future selves the way I see other people.

Failing to do some task today so that it ends up having to be done by somebody else strikes me as more shameful than failing to do some task today so that I have to do it tomorrow. So I'm much more likely to slack off if I'm going to pay the price in the future than if somebody else will. Maybe if I felt similar obligations towards Neiltomorrow as I do to, say, my colleagues, I'd get more things done today.

3 comments:

Stentor said...

It seems Calvin came to just the opposite conclusion -- if your future self is a different person, it's easy to foist your work off on that sucker.

Neil Sinhababu said...

Yeah, a lot of it depends on how serious you are about not burdening others. I don't think that's something Calvin worries about too much.

Friar Zero said...

I wasted several years of my life through a series of procrastination and stupid choices. My feeling on the matter is that if I ever met my past self I would beat the living crap out of him for wasting all that time.

In other words I agree with you.