The Formula for Procrastination

Some random Friday knowledge for you, and good news - there is a formula for procrastination! It looks like this:

                                 (E)xpectation of success x (V)alue of completing the task
Desire to Finish =   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                 (I)ndividual's sensitivity to delay x (D)eadline of the task

However, we don't have a cure for it yet. In a separate article, the researcher mentioned here stated that "continued research into procrastination should not be delayed." No word yet on whether or not that was an on-purpose funny.

Note to Self

That's a hastily jotted down outline for a short story that I vomited up over a decade ago. I recently remembered it existed and dug it out only to find that the coded scribbles of a college senior don't translate well to a thirty-something momma. Even if they are the same person.

Handwriting is kind of an issue for me. I was supposed to be left-handed, but being the littlest in my entirely right-pawed family meant that I was mimicking my parents and older sister in order to learn simple motor functions - holding a crayon, cutting with a scissors, even picking up my cup. Learning to tie my shoes was tantamount to torture until my sharp-eyed first grade teacher explained to my parents that I was naturally left-handed, but conditioned to be right. My lefty Grandma showed me a handy-dandy approach to shoelaces and I've pretty much got that down these days. But the handwriting continues to suffer (see Exhibit A).

There are other elements working against me in resurrecting the short story from Mindy-Of-The-Past. I often write to myself in a sort of code. It's not about protecting my creative babies from wandering eyes intent on stealing my stuff, or even a time-saving attempt at my own private shorthand. It's an Irish self-defense mechanism, I suppose, a physical way of keeping anyone from getting too close to something very important to me - my mind.

Which sounds kind of cool until I find a sentence like this:

Hsb. sys to w the "nitrogen line" and then the "miasma of life" idea of steering whl. and heat.

And thirty-something says, WTF?!?

Revolution! Chaos! Anarchy!

Most of us are very aware of the shaky ground that the publishing industry now stands on. But shaky ground means earthquakes, and earthquakes means shifting tectonic plates (check out that 7th grade science fact) and shifting tectonic plates means - something new.

New earth! We're not living in Pangaea anymore, my friends. And hey... that was a good thing that happened, right? Breaking apart a supercontinent meant that the homogenous land mass divided people (that sounds familiar...) but it also created diversity, gave us new cultures, and opened up pathways for the development of things like the wheel and fire, which proved quite useful.

And at the time, it was probably freaky as hell. Shockwaves, volcanoes, goats falling over, seas rushing in... in fact, I bet it felt kinda like the end of the world, when really it was part of a new beginning.

I fully admit to the digital age scaring the crap out of me in terms of how the publishing industry will evolve. I always pictured shiny stacks of my books, not new downloads. I like to hold a book in my hands and see the right hand side of pages getting smaller as I go, not watch the number in the right hand corner getting bigger.

But then I think about those goats falling over and the seas rushing in... and there are still goats around today. Not the same goats, but goats nonetheless.

Footnote - I fully realize that Pangaea breaking up wasn't directly responsible for the wheel and fire. Just clarifying.