September 5, 2025 • 27 mins
Why do so many smart people procrastinate? Is there a link between extreme achievement and putting off your work? And should you behead a roadside statue of St. Expedite if you miss a deadline? Will and Mango chat with author Andrew Santella about his book SOON: An Overdue History of Procrastination, from Leonardo and Darwin to You and Me, to discuss why taking a lazy approach to your responsibilities may not be the worst thing. Plus: Why to-do lists might be the ultimate vehicle for procrastination!
This episode originally aired on April 13, 2018.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what will what's that mango? So I think you
know I'm a procrastinator.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know that at this point.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Yeah, I'm the sort of person who always does my
research immediately or like buy supplies ahead of time because
I like to be prepared. And then traditionally I tend
to wait till the last minute to write my essays
or whatever.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Actually, I liked that story you told me about how
your parents kind of conditioned you to become a procrastinator.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, so when I was a kid, for like book
reports or diramas or whatever, like, it was always the same.
I just wait till the last minute, and then my
parents would stay up with me, and since I was up,
they'd make or order pizza. And then I'd be like
nine or nine thirty and like Mystery was on PBS,
so we'd stay up to watch the Sherlock Holmes with
(00:44):
my mom, and you know, since I was up, they'd
also like open a box of ice cream and we
eat that together. And then in the morning, like my
little sister would wake up and see a pizza box
and an ice cream carton and be like, you had
another party without me.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
That's great.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
So I mean, I both hate that I'm a procrastinator
and I really love staying up late and sort of
that thrill of rushing to a deadline and Metal Floss
used to feel like that to me. We'd rushed to
close an issue of the magazine and it was just
so fun.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
But I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
About procrastination, like what makes us do it? Why do
we brag about it? And who are the greatest procrastinators
in history? And that's what we're gonna find out today.
Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and sitting behind that soundproof glass
with a bottle of Nodos, a stack of bullet journals.
What is that a i'madoro timer and a pair of blinders.
I mean, this guy is so serious about never losing
his focus. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I know Tristan loves to hit deadlines.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
He is ruthless about not procrastinating. But you know, speaking
of procrastination, we've got Andrew Santella on the program.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Now.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Andrew's the author of a wonderful new book. It's called Soon,
An Overdue History of Procrastination from Leonardo and Darwin to
you and me. Welcome to part time genius Andrew.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
All right, so let's get right to it. And you've
said you wrote this book on procrastination not to end
your habit, but actually to excuse it, which is pretty wonderful.
So can you tell us a little bit about how
you decided to write this book and where the idea
came about.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, I was motivated almost entirely by self interest. I
knew I had this like long procrastination habit, and I
thought if I dove deep enough into the history of
the thing, I might find some little curve of information
that would justify my habit, that would excuse it and
make me feel a little less bad about it.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
So I think you're read that twenty percent of us
are chronic procrastinators, and I think it's like a third
of college students identify as procrastinators. And I was curious,
why do you think it is that people just love
to brag about being procrastinators?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
That is one of the most fascinating phenomenon connected to procrastination.
If you ask me, when I would tell people I
was working on a book about procrastination, almost always the
response would be, oh, that's the book for me. I'm
the world's worst procrastinator, or I'm a terrible procrastinator. I've
got to read that book. And I was noticing, like
(03:45):
all the language was very judgmental, terrible and the worst,
all those sorts of characterizations. So people were clearly ashamed
about their habit, but they're also bragging to me. So
there was this weird sort of perverse pride in their
in their in their terrible habits. And I recognize that
in myself. I think even people who aren't such bad
(04:07):
procrastinators want to call themselves really bad procrastinators. And and
I think we've been really conditioned to to feel bad
every time we aren't at our most efficient. It's a
it's a strange thing.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, it's definitely a strange thing. And so so we
should definitely get to the cure here, though, So can
you talk to us about Saint Expedite.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So the quick Lives of the Saints version is that
he was supposed to have been a Roman centurion in
the fourth century who was not a man of faith,
but one day decided to accept the Christian faith. But
he was visited, and this is the really good part here.
He was visited by a talking crow. And I know
(04:50):
we've all been there, the talking crows that they him,
you know, Expedite, just why don't want to hold on
a second? Uh? No, rush, Why don't you think about
it before you dive into this and make sure you're
doing the right thing. You can always do it tomorrow.
And Expedite, tempted as he was by the by the
opportunity to put off his conversion, decided that no, this
(05:12):
was the devil talking through the crow, and he actually
killed the crow. He stopped the crow to death. According
to legend, when you see a statue of Saint Expedite,
now he's almost always shown in his Roman centurion outfit
stepping on a crow, and you know at his feet
there's a dead there's a dead crow breathing his last
and I know it's gruesome. Expertite a banner that says Jodier,
(05:35):
which is the Latin word for today. So he is
this emblem of promptness and certitude. The real interesting thing
about that story, though, for me, is that it is
just a story. It's almost universally agreed that, you know,
he's a legend. His story might be based on many
characters or something like that, but there was no historical
Saint Expedite. And that's really to me because it's like,
(05:58):
only only a only a fictional character could be that
prompt and that for the rest of us, the rest
of us, actual human beings, you know, we have to
wrestle with our procrastination.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, I mean, Sant Expedite sounds fictional, but that talking crove,
it really sold me on the.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
You think, like with a detail like that, it's got
to be.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
True, definitely. But one of the things I'm s curious
about is how he's worshiped on Reunion Island. Would you
talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Yeah, So, in various places around the world, there's you know,
a pretty flourishing sort of devotional cult that you know
still you know, sees Expedite and other saints as sort
of mediators. When people need help, they will you know,
ask to intercede on their behalf. In Brazil, the feast
(06:50):
day of Saint Expedite, which is coming up, I think
it's a pull nineteenth I'm remember any right. The feast
day of Saint Expedite is really a big deal. I mean,
a lot of the the churches are filled with people,
and this Reunion Island is another place where where that
devotion exists. People that build roadside shrines to Expedite leave
(07:13):
the little innecessary prayers for him, asking for his help
with certain problems. And if they get his help and
they get help with the problem, they leave him some uh,
you know, some treat and if they don't, they're supposed
to lop off the head of the statue, And which
explains why there's a lot of headless Expedite statues.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I love that so much.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
In the United States, there's pretty much the only place
where that sort of devotion is still practices in the
area around New Orleans. There's a church, Our Lady of
Guadalupe Church, just outside the French Quarter on Rampart Street,
where there's a statue of Seeing Expedite, And I went
to visit, and I saw from my own eye is
(08:01):
little bits of paper left at the foot of his
statue intercessory prayers that people had scribbled out asking for
his help with this or with that. And the local
tradition is that You're supposed to leave a piece of
pound cake for expedite As as a sort of token
of your good, good, good faith, and I didn't. When
the day I visited, I didn't see any pound cake,
(08:22):
and the church was kind of dark and deserted, and
it was a little spooky in there, and I was thinking, Jesus,
that did he actually consume the pound cake? There was
no pound cake because Father Tony, who's the parish priest,
regularly cleans up and you know, collects the pound cake
and puts it to good use. So that was there
was there was a non supernatural explanation for that.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I like, puts it to good use. I mean, pound
cake is pretty delicious, so I have a feeling I
know what Father Tony is doing.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And had one more question about that though you you
made more than one trip to Saint Expedite, right, it
wasn't just the first trip.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I'm not. I'm a little ashamed of that, but yeah,
it's true. I went down with a friend who knew
that if he didn't accompany me, I would never get
down to New Orleans. I mean, I told him I
should really get down to New Orleans for this book
I'm writing and there's there's something down there I should
see it, like a really great chapter. And you know,
he knows me well enough. He's an old friend. He
knows me well enough that he knew I would down
there left to my own devices. So he insisted that
(09:19):
we go together. And he got on the plane with me,
and we went down to New Orleans and spent I
think two days down there. And I did not a
single bit of research on saying it. But I during
the two days I was in New Orleans, you know,
I just there was a lot of other things to
do in New Orleans. It's a very it's a very
fun city. So I had to go back a second time.
(09:39):
I was really a shamed of myself that I had
to go back a second time, this time by myself.
And I actually did talk to father Tony and some
other people about extra today.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
All right, well, let's move from talking about somebody who
was legendary to some very real people in history, some
famous procrastinators. But before we get to that, let's take
a quick break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius were
(10:11):
joined by andrewsen Tella, the author of the book Soon,
An Overdue History of Procrastination from Leonardo and Darwin to
you and me, why don't we move from someone who
may have been legend to some true famous procrastinators. So
can we talk a little bit about Charles Darwin?
Speaker 1 (10:27):
First?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Darwin is probably the favorite of all the sort of
historical figures that I encountered in working on the book.
I really came to be fond of him, you know.
I mean, I always knew what an important figure he
was and what a genius he was, But he also
is a just seems to have been a really devoted
family guy and a sort of an odd bird in
(10:50):
a really charming way. The fact is, it took him
more than two decades from the time when he sort
of developed the germ of the idea that is at
the heart of natural selection and wrote up sort of
that foundational idea in his private notebooks. It took him
(11:10):
more than two decades from that point to the point
where he actually published the landmark book on the Origin
of species. And you know, I understand that science takes time.
The fact is, during those two and a half decades,
he did a lot of things that in retrospect seemed
like maybe not great uses of his time. And I
(11:31):
think he did those things well, like, for example, he
edited gardening magazine. He did voluminous research on earth worms.
He did he became obsessed with barnacles. He had barnacles
all over his house and you know, pickled in jars,
and he was dissecting them and examining them and comparing
different categories and parnicles. He was just, by his own admission,
(11:54):
obsessed with things, to the point where his kids grew
up thinking like everyone lived like this with barnacles all
of the house. When one of Darwin's boys went to
visit a friend at a friend's house, he looked around
and said, well, where does your father do his barnacles?
He thought everyone had you had a study full of parnicles. So,
(12:15):
you know, you wonder why was he not just plugging
away on this book that he must have known would
shake the world to its core, and instead was spending
his time with worms, you know, And I think he
was ambivalent about the work he was doing in some ways.
You know, he was the product of a very devout
father who wanted him to go into the ministry, and
(12:37):
you know, I think that background made him feel especially
u leery of undertaking this work that he knew would
displace God in the worldview of many, and so I
think there were a lot of reasons why he was
ambivalent about his work, and so I think that resulted
in these detours that seem odd to us. And even
(12:59):
if even for Darwin he admitted I think I might
have spent might I might have spent a little bit
too long on those parnaicles that I read. But I
think one of the things that's really interesting, though, is
that he learned things from those detours that ended up
informing his work on natural selection. Natural selection is all
about small incremental changes that lead to large consequences, and
(13:25):
earth worms really demonstrate that, and Darwin recognized that what
he learned from the Barnacles informed his work at natural selection.
And so I think his story is illustrative of how
even the detours sometimes can lead us to some important understanding.
And I think that's one of the interesting things about procrastination, too,
(13:46):
is that there's a lot of there's a lot of
ways to get to understanding well.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
I think one of the other things that's interesting to
me is that, and you point this out, is that
there are so many ways to procrastinate, right, like from
like obsessing over little things that aren't important to like
doing important things, but you know, things that aren't important
right now, like and in analyzing profestinating, like, did you
find that you're more prone to anyone type or that
people tend to gravitate to one type?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
You know, I recognize and everyone, you know, people who
study this phenomenon sort of for a living, you know,
recognize that you could be really diligent in certain things
in your life, about the housework or paying bills, and
but a complete procrastinating slacker about other parts of you,
like maybe your work deadlines or something like that, or
(14:35):
or it could be in reverse. So yes, there's I
think most of us have areas where we're uh diligent
in one thing and not so in another. And I
mean that just goes to illustrate how, you know, we're
all divided selves, and we all have these, uh you know,
parts of ourselves that that are sort of at war
(14:57):
with each other, and I think there was all what
happens when we're trying to resolve those wars is procrastination.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
You know.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I think it's interesting that you note that Aristotle and
Socrates had different philosophies on procrastination, and this idea of
there's a word you have in the book I wasn't
familiar with it. Is it a crazia? How do you
pronounce the word?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Maybe, yeah, yeah, So you talk about this idea of aquatia,
So can can you talk a little bit about this?
Speaker 3 (15:23):
So, yes, you're asking me to unpack ancient Greek philosophy.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Is that is that if you don't mind, like let's say,
let's say we give you, you know, five minutes to
unpack the whole thing. I feel like that's reasonable.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah. So the question about a crasia is whether a
rational person can knowingly do something that's bad for yet
for her. I mean, I don't think the ancient Greeks
would have said or her, but I'll add that. So
in other words, if your rational, why would you do
something that you know is going to come back to
bite you and later, like for example, procrastinating. I mean
(15:56):
that's the definition of procrastination is to put off something
that needs to be done, knowing that the delay will
harm you at something will cost you at some point
in the future. So if you're a rational person, why
would you, knowing lee do something that will cost you
in the future. And if you're not rational, well then
(16:19):
you're not you're not capable of knowing that. So so
you know, I guess that's the debate.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
All right, we need to take one more quick break,
but when we come back, I want to talk about
to do lists. Welcome back to part time genius. I
(16:48):
want to ask a couple of questions about to do lists.
I don't know about you, but I'm definitely a to
do list maker. I love keeping lists around, and it's
something that you know, we seem to live in a
society that's upset with these to do lists. And it
was funny you actually included Johnny Cash in the mix here.
So can you talk a little bit about to do
list and your philosophy around them.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yeah. My philosophy of to do lists is that they're
a great way to avoid actually doing the things on
the to do list.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
That sounds about right.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I spent so much time actually making the list that
I find that, you know, and and and I get
such satisfaction from making the list that I don't really
feel like I need to do the things on the list.
The other thing that happens is like I lose my
list quite a lot, you know, I make so many
lists over the course of the day, you know, I
leave them all over the place, and I'll lose them,
(17:39):
and it's it's funny. They turn up maybe like a
month later, you know, and they're still perfectly good because
I haven't done anything.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
So it's there's still there's still a valid and valuable
I thinks are a dubious value to like actually getting
things done. Although actually getting things done was is not
really the topic of interest for me in the book.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
It's not a how to book or a or a
self help book, but trying to understand why we make
lists was of interest to me, and I came across
really interesting stuff from the novelist and CEO Titian Umberdo Echo,
who wrote at length about lists, and he theorized that
(18:21):
we make lists because we're afraid to die. Lists are
sort of a gesture at infinitude, that you can never
complete a list. There's always more to be added to.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
A list, and and as as a as as an
emblem of infinitude, they remind us of our by nightness
and our and our mortality, and so we make lists,
Echo said, because we're afraid to die.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
I totally buy into that. Idea, I think, I think
so I basically I feel like anything I do I
do because I'm afraid to die.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Well, I do like too that. I think you mentioned
that a lot of people will put things and I
do this, like I'll put things on a list just
to knock it off, And I think I think there
is some link between that and my being a procrastinator,
where I think I take a certain amount of pride
in being able to hit the deadline even though I
wait such a long time. Like, I think that feeling
of accomplishment from both things, like somehow ties together. But
(19:22):
you talk about Frank Lloyd right and how he came
up with the idea of falling water in just two hours,
and I really love that story, I think as a procrastinator,
so I was wondering if you could share that with us.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yeah. I think a great way to get that feeling
of satisfaction of knocking something off the list is to
write the most the most ridiculous things and the most
the simplest things down as things to do that day, Like,
for example, getting up and going to the bathroom would
be something to put at the top of your list
and it'd be done, you know, just cross it off
and you've gotten one of the things off your list.
(19:53):
That's all right, I know I said, it wasn't a
subf help, but that's my one protein.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Go to the bathroom and righte it down.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Asked about Frank Floyd Wright, So Franklyad Wright was asked
to design a house outside Pittsburgh by one of his clients,
and the house became what we know was Falling Water,
one of the great accomplishments of residential architecture, of course,
(20:23):
And and this this commission came at a time when
Wright's reputation was sort of in tatters. He was on
the outside. This new wave of European Modernists were the
end thing, and he was definitely a sort of a
has been, and this commission had the potential to resurrect
(20:46):
his career. And of course, right did the only thing
that a procrastinator could do. Given the chance to make
such a splash, He put it off. He just, having
gotten the commission, put nothing down on paper for the
longest time. And it was only when his client called
and said, Hey, I'm gonna come by the studio tomorrow.
(21:06):
I'd love to see those drawings you've been working on.
That right, actually started working on those drawings he was
supposed to be working on. And so this legend sprung
up partly, you know, disseminated by his students and his
sort of his disciples, that he scribbled out his designs
for this master work, you know, at the very last minute,
(21:28):
like as his client was waiting in the waiting room,
he was finishing these these designs for falling Water. And
I mean, it really could not have happened that way,
his scholars agree. I mean, he must have had the
ideas in his head or in some sort of you know,
partially finished state, and then translated them to paper, you know,
(21:52):
when he needed to. But it's interesting to me that
his students wanted to promote this legend of him procrastinating
and not being diligent, because you wouldn't think that would
be something to be proud of. You wouldn't think that
would add to your professional reputation. But in his student's mind,
it was sort of a proof of what a genius
(22:16):
he was, that he could I'm almost out demand just
with about the you know, ideas that would shake architecture
to its core. And you know, I think so that's
his story is a lesson in how we sometimes attribute
genius to or connect procrastination to genius in a sort
(22:37):
of not entirely valid way.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So, Andrew, I really love this book. But one of
the things I noticed, and this isn't a chrism you,
but you know, it does seem like there are a
lot of historical examples of women procrastinating. And I was curious,
why do you think that is?
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, and I would recognize that as I was writing,
And I mean, part of the problem is that, you know,
women just aren't as well represented in our understanding of
history as they might be. Our idea of history is,
at least in the Western world, is sort of monotone.
And the short answer is, I don't know. I did
(23:15):
write about Penelope and how I think Penelope was an
example of a really strategic procrastinator, someone who used procrastination
to achieve what she wanted to achieve. That is, she
wanted to remain faithful to her husband. You know, the
story of hyde Penelope is that she told the suitors
(23:39):
who wanted to marry her that she would consider them
only when she finished making this shroud for her father
in law. You know, her husband had been offered. I
don't know how long, twenty years, and people assumed that
he was dead, but she believed that he would eventually
return to her, and so she didn't want to you
(24:01):
didn't want to deal with these suitors who wanted to
take her husband's place. And so every day she would
work on this shroud that she was supposed to be weaving,
and every night she would unravel the work done the
previous day, which I think is a lot of what
us procrastinators do, sort of metaphorically with our homework. And
so her unraveling, her postponing, and her you know that
(24:22):
delay that she employed allowed her to buy time for
her husband to return.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
All right, sir Andrew, one more question before we let
you go. You talk a little bit of the book
about procrastination societies, which I have to be honest, it
sounds kind of fun. So can you talk a little
bit about this.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yes, I mean, I think procrastination is so widespread and
people feel so bad about it that it's only natural
that they've banned together as procrastinators. It's also forming a
procrastination society seems to be a great occasion for making
lame jokes about procrastination, so that you know, if you
if you started a procrastination society, you know, the founding
(25:03):
date might be some point in the future, or the
first meeting will be you know, postponed that you know,
you just run across those sorts of lame jokes all
the time. I ran across. Well, we talked about Lichtenberg earlier,
the German Enlightenment scientists. Discovering his story led me to
(25:26):
a group of people in a small town outside Atlanta, Georgia,
who founded a society called the Lichtenbergian Society that honors
Lichtenberg and his role in promoting procrastination. They're all sort
of creative, smart people that the teachers and play rights
(25:49):
and architects, and I think there was a professional clown
in there too, And they're all inveterate procrastinators who are
both like so many of us, a shame of their
habit and proud of their hat of it. And so
they formed this group and I went down and uh
and sat in on one of their meetings, which happened
(26:09):
in the really charming backyard of one of the members house,
who next to the labyrinth that he built in his backyard.
He built the labyrinth one summer when he was supposed
to have been composing an opera, uh and he got
like nothing done on the opera. He built this really
cool labyrinth and it's a great place to have a
have a cocktail and on a nice spring night like
we did that night. So that looked in Berghian in society.
(26:32):
If you're looking for a group to join, boy, that's it.
I recommend that highly.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
We've been talking with Andrew Santella. The book is soon
an overdue history of procrastination from Leonardo and Darwin to
you and me. Thanks so much for being here, Andrew,
my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
I had a lot of fun.
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Good job, Eves.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Maybe you could leave a good review for us.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Do we forget Jason?
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Jason who
Guess what will what's that mango? So I think you
know I'm a procrastinator.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know that at this point.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Yeah, I'm the sort of person who always does my
research immediately or like buy supplies ahead of time because
I like to be prepared. And then traditionally I tend
to wait till the last minute to write my essays
or whatever.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Actually, I liked that story you told me about how
your parents kind of conditioned you to become a procrastinator.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, so when I was a kid, for like book
reports or diramas or whatever, like, it was always the same.
I just wait till the last minute, and then my
parents would stay up with me, and since I was up,
they'd make or order pizza. And then I'd be like
nine or nine thirty and like Mystery was on PBS,
so we'd stay up to watch the Sherlock Holmes with
(00:44):
my mom, and you know, since I was up, they'd
also like open a box of ice cream and we
eat that together. And then in the morning, like my
little sister would wake up and see a pizza box
and an ice cream carton and be like, you had
another party without me.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
That's great.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
So I mean, I both hate that I'm a procrastinator
and I really love staying up late and sort of
that thrill of rushing to a deadline and Metal Floss
used to feel like that to me. We'd rushed to
close an issue of the magazine and it was just
so fun.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
But I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
About procrastination, like what makes us do it? Why do
we brag about it? And who are the greatest procrastinators
in history? And that's what we're gonna find out today.
Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and sitting behind that soundproof glass
with a bottle of Nodos, a stack of bullet journals.
What is that a i'madoro timer and a pair of blinders.
I mean, this guy is so serious about never losing
his focus. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I know Tristan loves to hit deadlines.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
He is ruthless about not procrastinating. But you know, speaking
of procrastination, we've got Andrew Santella on the program.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Now.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Andrew's the author of a wonderful new book. It's called Soon,
An Overdue History of Procrastination from Leonardo and Darwin to
you and me. Welcome to part time genius Andrew.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
All right, so let's get right to it. And you've
said you wrote this book on procrastination not to end
your habit, but actually to excuse it, which is pretty wonderful.
So can you tell us a little bit about how
you decided to write this book and where the idea
came about.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, I was motivated almost entirely by self interest. I
knew I had this like long procrastination habit, and I
thought if I dove deep enough into the history of
the thing, I might find some little curve of information
that would justify my habit, that would excuse it and
make me feel a little less bad about it.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
So I think you're read that twenty percent of us
are chronic procrastinators, and I think it's like a third
of college students identify as procrastinators. And I was curious,
why do you think it is that people just love
to brag about being procrastinators?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
That is one of the most fascinating phenomenon connected to procrastination.
If you ask me, when I would tell people I
was working on a book about procrastination, almost always the
response would be, oh, that's the book for me. I'm
the world's worst procrastinator, or I'm a terrible procrastinator. I've
got to read that book. And I was noticing, like
(03:45):
all the language was very judgmental, terrible and the worst,
all those sorts of characterizations. So people were clearly ashamed
about their habit, but they're also bragging to me. So
there was this weird sort of perverse pride in their
in their in their terrible habits. And I recognize that
in myself. I think even people who aren't such bad
(04:07):
procrastinators want to call themselves really bad procrastinators. And and
I think we've been really conditioned to to feel bad
every time we aren't at our most efficient. It's a
it's a strange thing.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, it's definitely a strange thing. And so so we
should definitely get to the cure here, though, So can
you talk to us about Saint Expedite.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So the quick Lives of the Saints version is that
he was supposed to have been a Roman centurion in
the fourth century who was not a man of faith,
but one day decided to accept the Christian faith. But
he was visited, and this is the really good part here.
He was visited by a talking crow. And I know
(04:50):
we've all been there, the talking crows that they him,
you know, Expedite, just why don't want to hold on
a second? Uh? No, rush, Why don't you think about
it before you dive into this and make sure you're
doing the right thing. You can always do it tomorrow.
And Expedite, tempted as he was by the by the
opportunity to put off his conversion, decided that no, this
(05:12):
was the devil talking through the crow, and he actually
killed the crow. He stopped the crow to death. According
to legend, when you see a statue of Saint Expedite,
now he's almost always shown in his Roman centurion outfit
stepping on a crow, and you know at his feet
there's a dead there's a dead crow breathing his last
and I know it's gruesome. Expertite a banner that says Jodier,
(05:35):
which is the Latin word for today. So he is
this emblem of promptness and certitude. The real interesting thing
about that story, though, for me, is that it is
just a story. It's almost universally agreed that, you know,
he's a legend. His story might be based on many
characters or something like that, but there was no historical
Saint Expedite. And that's really to me because it's like,
(05:58):
only only a only a fictional character could be that
prompt and that for the rest of us, the rest
of us, actual human beings, you know, we have to
wrestle with our procrastination.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, I mean, Sant Expedite sounds fictional, but that talking crove,
it really sold me on the.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
You think, like with a detail like that, it's got
to be.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
True, definitely. But one of the things I'm s curious
about is how he's worshiped on Reunion Island. Would you
talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Yeah, So, in various places around the world, there's you know,
a pretty flourishing sort of devotional cult that you know
still you know, sees Expedite and other saints as sort
of mediators. When people need help, they will you know,
ask to intercede on their behalf. In Brazil, the feast
(06:50):
day of Saint Expedite, which is coming up, I think
it's a pull nineteenth I'm remember any right. The feast
day of Saint Expedite is really a big deal. I mean,
a lot of the the churches are filled with people,
and this Reunion Island is another place where where that
devotion exists. People that build roadside shrines to Expedite leave
(07:13):
the little innecessary prayers for him, asking for his help
with certain problems. And if they get his help and
they get help with the problem, they leave him some uh,
you know, some treat and if they don't, they're supposed
to lop off the head of the statue, And which
explains why there's a lot of headless Expedite statues.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I love that so much.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
In the United States, there's pretty much the only place
where that sort of devotion is still practices in the
area around New Orleans. There's a church, Our Lady of
Guadalupe Church, just outside the French Quarter on Rampart Street,
where there's a statue of Seeing Expedite, And I went
to visit, and I saw from my own eye is
(08:01):
little bits of paper left at the foot of his
statue intercessory prayers that people had scribbled out asking for
his help with this or with that. And the local
tradition is that You're supposed to leave a piece of
pound cake for expedite As as a sort of token
of your good, good, good faith, and I didn't. When
the day I visited, I didn't see any pound cake,
(08:22):
and the church was kind of dark and deserted, and
it was a little spooky in there, and I was thinking, Jesus,
that did he actually consume the pound cake? There was
no pound cake because Father Tony, who's the parish priest,
regularly cleans up and you know, collects the pound cake
and puts it to good use. So that was there
was there was a non supernatural explanation for that.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I like, puts it to good use. I mean, pound
cake is pretty delicious, so I have a feeling I
know what Father Tony is doing.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And had one more question about that though you you
made more than one trip to Saint Expedite, right, it
wasn't just the first trip.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I'm not. I'm a little ashamed of that, but yeah,
it's true. I went down with a friend who knew
that if he didn't accompany me, I would never get
down to New Orleans. I mean, I told him I
should really get down to New Orleans for this book
I'm writing and there's there's something down there I should
see it, like a really great chapter. And you know,
he knows me well enough. He's an old friend. He
knows me well enough that he knew I would down
there left to my own devices. So he insisted that
(09:19):
we go together. And he got on the plane with me,
and we went down to New Orleans and spent I
think two days down there. And I did not a
single bit of research on saying it. But I during
the two days I was in New Orleans, you know,
I just there was a lot of other things to
do in New Orleans. It's a very it's a very
fun city. So I had to go back a second time.
(09:39):
I was really a shamed of myself that I had
to go back a second time, this time by myself.
And I actually did talk to father Tony and some
other people about extra today.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
All right, well, let's move from talking about somebody who
was legendary to some very real people in history, some
famous procrastinators. But before we get to that, let's take
a quick break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius were
(10:11):
joined by andrewsen Tella, the author of the book Soon,
An Overdue History of Procrastination from Leonardo and Darwin to
you and me, why don't we move from someone who
may have been legend to some true famous procrastinators. So
can we talk a little bit about Charles Darwin?
Speaker 1 (10:27):
First?
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Darwin is probably the favorite of all the sort of
historical figures that I encountered in working on the book.
I really came to be fond of him, you know.
I mean, I always knew what an important figure he
was and what a genius he was, But he also
is a just seems to have been a really devoted
family guy and a sort of an odd bird in
(10:50):
a really charming way. The fact is, it took him
more than two decades from the time when he sort
of developed the germ of the idea that is at
the heart of natural selection and wrote up sort of
that foundational idea in his private notebooks. It took him
(11:10):
more than two decades from that point to the point
where he actually published the landmark book on the Origin
of species. And you know, I understand that science takes time.
The fact is, during those two and a half decades,
he did a lot of things that in retrospect seemed
like maybe not great uses of his time. And I
(11:31):
think he did those things well, like, for example, he
edited gardening magazine. He did voluminous research on earth worms.
He did he became obsessed with barnacles. He had barnacles
all over his house and you know, pickled in jars,
and he was dissecting them and examining them and comparing
different categories and parnicles. He was just, by his own admission,
(11:54):
obsessed with things, to the point where his kids grew
up thinking like everyone lived like this with barnacles all
of the house. When one of Darwin's boys went to
visit a friend at a friend's house, he looked around
and said, well, where does your father do his barnacles?
He thought everyone had you had a study full of parnicles. So,
(12:15):
you know, you wonder why was he not just plugging
away on this book that he must have known would
shake the world to its core, and instead was spending
his time with worms, you know, And I think he
was ambivalent about the work he was doing in some ways.
You know, he was the product of a very devout
father who wanted him to go into the ministry, and
(12:37):
you know, I think that background made him feel especially
u leery of undertaking this work that he knew would
displace God in the worldview of many, and so I
think there were a lot of reasons why he was
ambivalent about his work, and so I think that resulted
in these detours that seem odd to us. And even
(12:59):
if even for Darwin he admitted I think I might
have spent might I might have spent a little bit
too long on those parnaicles that I read. But I
think one of the things that's really interesting, though, is
that he learned things from those detours that ended up
informing his work on natural selection. Natural selection is all
about small incremental changes that lead to large consequences, and
(13:25):
earth worms really demonstrate that, and Darwin recognized that what
he learned from the Barnacles informed his work at natural selection.
And so I think his story is illustrative of how
even the detours sometimes can lead us to some important understanding.
And I think that's one of the interesting things about procrastination, too,
(13:46):
is that there's a lot of there's a lot of
ways to get to understanding well.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
I think one of the other things that's interesting to
me is that, and you point this out, is that
there are so many ways to procrastinate, right, like from
like obsessing over little things that aren't important to like
doing important things, but you know, things that aren't important
right now, like and in analyzing profestinating, like, did you
find that you're more prone to anyone type or that
people tend to gravitate to one type?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
You know, I recognize and everyone, you know, people who
study this phenomenon sort of for a living, you know,
recognize that you could be really diligent in certain things
in your life, about the housework or paying bills, and
but a complete procrastinating slacker about other parts of you,
like maybe your work deadlines or something like that, or
(14:35):
or it could be in reverse. So yes, there's I
think most of us have areas where we're uh diligent
in one thing and not so in another. And I
mean that just goes to illustrate how, you know, we're
all divided selves, and we all have these, uh you know,
parts of ourselves that that are sort of at war
(14:57):
with each other, and I think there was all what
happens when we're trying to resolve those wars is procrastination.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
You know.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I think it's interesting that you note that Aristotle and
Socrates had different philosophies on procrastination, and this idea of
there's a word you have in the book I wasn't
familiar with it. Is it a crazia? How do you
pronounce the word?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Maybe, yeah, yeah, So you talk about this idea of aquatia,
So can can you talk a little bit about this?
Speaker 3 (15:23):
So, yes, you're asking me to unpack ancient Greek philosophy.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Is that is that if you don't mind, like let's say,
let's say we give you, you know, five minutes to
unpack the whole thing. I feel like that's reasonable.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah. So the question about a crasia is whether a
rational person can knowingly do something that's bad for yet
for her. I mean, I don't think the ancient Greeks
would have said or her, but I'll add that. So
in other words, if your rational, why would you do
something that you know is going to come back to
bite you and later, like for example, procrastinating. I mean
(15:56):
that's the definition of procrastination is to put off something
that needs to be done, knowing that the delay will
harm you at something will cost you at some point
in the future. So if you're a rational person, why
would you, knowing lee do something that will cost you
in the future. And if you're not rational, well then
(16:19):
you're not you're not capable of knowing that. So so
you know, I guess that's the debate.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
All right, we need to take one more quick break,
but when we come back, I want to talk about
to do lists. Welcome back to part time genius. I
(16:48):
want to ask a couple of questions about to do lists.
I don't know about you, but I'm definitely a to
do list maker. I love keeping lists around, and it's
something that you know, we seem to live in a
society that's upset with these to do lists. And it
was funny you actually included Johnny Cash in the mix here.
So can you talk a little bit about to do
list and your philosophy around them.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yeah. My philosophy of to do lists is that they're
a great way to avoid actually doing the things on
the to do list.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
That sounds about right.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I spent so much time actually making the list that
I find that, you know, and and and I get
such satisfaction from making the list that I don't really
feel like I need to do the things on the list.
The other thing that happens is like I lose my
list quite a lot, you know, I make so many
lists over the course of the day, you know, I
leave them all over the place, and I'll lose them,
(17:39):
and it's it's funny. They turn up maybe like a
month later, you know, and they're still perfectly good because
I haven't done anything.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
So it's there's still there's still a valid and valuable
I thinks are a dubious value to like actually getting
things done. Although actually getting things done was is not
really the topic of interest for me in the book.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
It's not a how to book or a or a
self help book, but trying to understand why we make
lists was of interest to me, and I came across
really interesting stuff from the novelist and CEO Titian Umberdo Echo,
who wrote at length about lists, and he theorized that
(18:21):
we make lists because we're afraid to die. Lists are
sort of a gesture at infinitude, that you can never
complete a list. There's always more to be added to.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
A list, and and as as a as as an
emblem of infinitude, they remind us of our by nightness
and our and our mortality, and so we make lists,
Echo said, because we're afraid to die.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
I totally buy into that. Idea, I think, I think
so I basically I feel like anything I do I
do because I'm afraid to die.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Well, I do like too that. I think you mentioned
that a lot of people will put things and I
do this, like I'll put things on a list just
to knock it off, And I think I think there
is some link between that and my being a procrastinator,
where I think I take a certain amount of pride
in being able to hit the deadline even though I
wait such a long time. Like, I think that feeling
of accomplishment from both things, like somehow ties together. But
(19:22):
you talk about Frank Lloyd right and how he came
up with the idea of falling water in just two hours,
and I really love that story, I think as a procrastinator,
so I was wondering if you could share that with us.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yeah. I think a great way to get that feeling
of satisfaction of knocking something off the list is to
write the most the most ridiculous things and the most
the simplest things down as things to do that day, Like,
for example, getting up and going to the bathroom would
be something to put at the top of your list
and it'd be done, you know, just cross it off
and you've gotten one of the things off your list.
(19:53):
That's all right, I know I said, it wasn't a
subf help, but that's my one protein.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Go to the bathroom and righte it down.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Asked about Frank Floyd Wright, So Franklyad Wright was asked
to design a house outside Pittsburgh by one of his clients,
and the house became what we know was Falling Water,
one of the great accomplishments of residential architecture, of course,
(20:23):
And and this this commission came at a time when
Wright's reputation was sort of in tatters. He was on
the outside. This new wave of European Modernists were the
end thing, and he was definitely a sort of a
has been, and this commission had the potential to resurrect
(20:46):
his career. And of course, right did the only thing
that a procrastinator could do. Given the chance to make
such a splash, He put it off. He just, having
gotten the commission, put nothing down on paper for the
longest time. And it was only when his client called
and said, Hey, I'm gonna come by the studio tomorrow.
(21:06):
I'd love to see those drawings you've been working on.
That right, actually started working on those drawings he was
supposed to be working on. And so this legend sprung
up partly, you know, disseminated by his students and his
sort of his disciples, that he scribbled out his designs
for this master work, you know, at the very last minute,
(21:28):
like as his client was waiting in the waiting room,
he was finishing these these designs for falling Water. And
I mean, it really could not have happened that way,
his scholars agree. I mean, he must have had the
ideas in his head or in some sort of you know,
partially finished state, and then translated them to paper, you know,
(21:52):
when he needed to. But it's interesting to me that
his students wanted to promote this legend of him procrastinating
and not being diligent, because you wouldn't think that would
be something to be proud of. You wouldn't think that
would add to your professional reputation. But in his student's mind,
it was sort of a proof of what a genius
(22:16):
he was, that he could I'm almost out demand just
with about the you know, ideas that would shake architecture
to its core. And you know, I think so that's
his story is a lesson in how we sometimes attribute
genius to or connect procrastination to genius in a sort
(22:37):
of not entirely valid way.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So, Andrew, I really love this book. But one of
the things I noticed, and this isn't a chrism you,
but you know, it does seem like there are a
lot of historical examples of women procrastinating. And I was curious,
why do you think that is?
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, and I would recognize that as I was writing,
And I mean, part of the problem is that, you know,
women just aren't as well represented in our understanding of
history as they might be. Our idea of history is,
at least in the Western world, is sort of monotone.
And the short answer is, I don't know. I did
(23:15):
write about Penelope and how I think Penelope was an
example of a really strategic procrastinator, someone who used procrastination
to achieve what she wanted to achieve. That is, she
wanted to remain faithful to her husband. You know, the
story of hyde Penelope is that she told the suitors
(23:39):
who wanted to marry her that she would consider them
only when she finished making this shroud for her father
in law. You know, her husband had been offered. I
don't know how long, twenty years, and people assumed that
he was dead, but she believed that he would eventually
return to her, and so she didn't want to you
(24:01):
didn't want to deal with these suitors who wanted to
take her husband's place. And so every day she would
work on this shroud that she was supposed to be weaving,
and every night she would unravel the work done the
previous day, which I think is a lot of what
us procrastinators do, sort of metaphorically with our homework. And
so her unraveling, her postponing, and her you know that
(24:22):
delay that she employed allowed her to buy time for
her husband to return.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
All right, sir Andrew, one more question before we let
you go. You talk a little bit of the book
about procrastination societies, which I have to be honest, it
sounds kind of fun. So can you talk a little
bit about this.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yes, I mean, I think procrastination is so widespread and
people feel so bad about it that it's only natural
that they've banned together as procrastinators. It's also forming a
procrastination society seems to be a great occasion for making
lame jokes about procrastination, so that you know, if you
if you started a procrastination society, you know, the founding
(25:03):
date might be some point in the future, or the
first meeting will be you know, postponed that you know,
you just run across those sorts of lame jokes all
the time. I ran across. Well, we talked about Lichtenberg earlier,
the German Enlightenment scientists. Discovering his story led me to
(25:26):
a group of people in a small town outside Atlanta, Georgia,
who founded a society called the Lichtenbergian Society that honors
Lichtenberg and his role in promoting procrastination. They're all sort
of creative, smart people that the teachers and play rights
(25:49):
and architects, and I think there was a professional clown
in there too, And they're all inveterate procrastinators who are
both like so many of us, a shame of their
habit and proud of their hat of it. And so
they formed this group and I went down and uh
and sat in on one of their meetings, which happened
(26:09):
in the really charming backyard of one of the members house,
who next to the labyrinth that he built in his backyard.
He built the labyrinth one summer when he was supposed
to have been composing an opera, uh and he got
like nothing done on the opera. He built this really
cool labyrinth and it's a great place to have a
have a cocktail and on a nice spring night like
we did that night. So that looked in Berghian in society.
(26:32):
If you're looking for a group to join, boy, that's it.
I recommend that highly.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
We've been talking with Andrew Santella. The book is soon
an overdue history of procrastination from Leonardo and Darwin to
you and me. Thanks so much for being here, Andrew,
my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
I had a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
of how stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several
brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even
begin to understand.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Christan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Gabeluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Adams and Eves. Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears.
Good job, Eves.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Maybe you could leave a good review for us.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Do we forget Jason?
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Jason who
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Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.