Don't Delay

Understanding procrastination and how to achieve our goals.

Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. is an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, where he specializes in the study of procrastination. See full bio

March 26, 2008, Personality

Comments on "Just get started"

Just get started

By Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. on March 26, 2008 in Don't Delay

If you're reading this, chances are you're procrastinating right now. At least that's what readers tell me. The topic has personal relevance.

Given that your reading may be motivated by a desire to procrastinate less, I thought it would be wise to say a little more about my mantra, "just get started!" It all began with some interesting research using pagers to track procrastination over time. Read More

makes perfect sense, things

Submitted by farouk on January 26, 2009 - 2:38am.

makes perfect sense, things appear bigger than they really are until we start doing them

Many years ago I attended a

Submitted by Ranster on November 20, 2009 - 10:41am.

Many years ago I attended a meditation retreat and the teacher ended the nine days of silence with the admonition to "Just Do It."
That is the foundation of a task that is challenging and satisfying. The action is not a choice.

RAnster

yeah its all fine and dandy

Submitted by gal on December 1, 2009 - 9:31pm.

yeah its all fine and dandy and easy to say just do it until you have to interact with other humans for your project. getting them to budge to work with you makes the problem exponentially more complex.