Precrastination is a concept so new that my spell-check still doesn’t know about it (darn red squiggly lines). But, according to paper being published in Psychological Science, it’s not something the Onion/Conan/Fallon invented.
We all know that procrastination is the tendency to put things off, sometimes to our own detriment (think “late fees”). Well, not surprisingly, precrastination is the opposite: it’s the tendency to complete or begin tasks as soon as possible.
Sounds great right?
- You’re already starting to hate these super-productive go-getters, right?
- Somewhere, a life coach is 5 seconds away from publishing the book “Harnessing the Power of Precrastination.”
Here’s the catch:
Persons who precrastinate do so, like procrastinators, to their own detriment:
- Precrastinators are the students who write a term paper before getting the complete list of instructions, only to learn later that they need to start over from page one.
- Precrastinators start driving before their GPS calculates a route, and more often than not need to turn around.
In one study (the one in the Psychological Science journal) participants at a starting line were given two options:
- Option 1: Pick up a bucket of pennies (placed next to them) and carry it down the road to the finish line.
- Option 2: Leave the bucket of pennies, and instead pick up a bucket of pennies much closer to the finish line, and carry that one over the line.
Reason would suggest that it makes most sense to leave the bucket near them, and pick up the bucket closest to the finish line. However, a precrastinator will lug the bucket closest to them.
Why? The theory is that when we precrastinate (and surprise, everyone does it), we’d rather ‘do’ than think. While minuscule, it takes additional mental effort to (1) walk, (2) remember to pick up second bucket, and then (3) pickup the second bucket and walk some more.
When we precrastinate, we’re deciding that thinking is for the birds. We’d rather drag pennies down the road.
