‘I am so procrastinating this story about procrastination,” I typed to my friend, Shea on gmail chat.

It’s the day before my deadline and the workday is waning. I accepted this assignment two months ago, and here I am, not surprisingly, down to the wire. In all fairness, I planned it this way; but even so, that familiar panic is already beginning to overtake me: Will I really get this done? How in the world?

Procrastination is the act — some might say the art — of delaying something that must eventually be done, usually accompanied by some level of psychological discomfort. Most people I spoke to say they procrastinate to some degree.

In an informal poll conducted in a Carroll class I’m taking, nearly everyone shot up their hands when I asked who considered themselves to be procrastinators. Only a few, however, fessed up to being “really bad.”

“I had a five-page paper due today, and I totally did it the night before,” said one. “And I think I got an A, too.”

Personally, I am a terrible procrastinator, which will probably come as a surprise to those who know me as an uber-organized, type A individual. Why do I procrastinate, then? Like my classmate, in part because I can.

Why we procrastinate

Simply put: nothing feels as wonderful as not doing what you’re supposed to be doing. So you don’t do it, until you absolutely, positively, indubitably must.

Then, there are the replacement procrastinators: those who are always doing something, it just happens to be the most useless, inconsequential thing ever.

I call this the notebook principle. Every time I think of a fantastic new project, one that has me seemingly energized and ready to take action, I am paralyzed by the idea that I absolutely must have a new notebook before I start working.

My friend, Leah tells me she put off revising her dissertation at Harvard for two years:

“One of the things I did was alphabetize my baseball card collection,” she said.

I thought I was a conscientious procrastinator, but in the short time I’ve been writing this story, I’ve managed to clean off my desk, chat with my co-workers and online and clean out my e-mail inbox numerous times.

If the majority of us are replacement procrastinators, our downfall won’t be war and strife, it’ll be Minesweeper.

A few co-workers, who don’t consider themselves to be serious procrastinators, say they only procrastinate unsavory tasks, like paying bills or “fixing the vacuum cleaner cord.”

“I think it depends on how passionate you are,” said one moderate procrastinator.

From those I spoke to, however, procrastination starts to become a problem when you’re putting off the things you actually like to do.

“I only get around to procrastinating when I have time,” says Sarah Dramstad, a Capital High School student.

It sounds like she’s joking until she rattles off her list of tasks for a typical Thursday night: speech and debate practice after school, physics and calculus homework, study for an AP English test, “And somehow I have to go to a pep band game tonight and watch ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’”

Don’t forget to eat dinner, Sarah.

When Dramstad does procrastinate, she says she always manages to get things done passably, but never up to her own high standards.

One student says he makes himself anxious to the point of not sleeping; another professes that she “couldn’t care less” about getting things done.

“It’s not like I don’t have time,” says the former, explaining that he usually doesn’t realize — read: blocks out — how much he has to do until it’s too late. Then it’s time to panic.

One popular theory used to be that the main culprits of procrastination are perfectionists, who are so freaked out about getting things right that they never do anything at all.

This turns out not to be the case, according to Piers Steel, a researcher at the University of Calgary who recently conducted a comprehensive study on procrastination. In fact, perfectionists tend to fall a little lower than most on the procrastination scale.

Many of the Carroll students I talked to also said they avoid tasks simply because they’re not enjoyable, like one who said of organic chemistry: “I don’t like it and it scares me.”

But those same students generally get their organic chemistry done, lending credence to Steel’s discounted utility theory, developed as a result of his study.

Steel’s procrastination equation, if you will, says that U = ExV/GD, where U equals utility, or the “preferred course of action.”

Basically, Steel is saying that we choose a preferred course of action based on four things: how likely it is that it will produce the desired outcome; how much we value that outcome; how immediate the payoff will be; and the degree to which the outcome will be made worse by delaying the task.

So if you’ve got a paper due in a few weeks, those last few variables are way down. Only when the payoff becomes more imminent and goes up in value do we sit down at the computer and start working.

Which begs the question: is putting off a task really such a bad idea if the result is going to be pretty much the same either way?

Maybe not. Most procrastinators I spoke to had a pretty good idea of how long they could delay a task, as well as what quality their work would be at, once they got around to doing it.

Two other important contributors to procrastination are closely linked to modern society: temptation and interruption.

Lately, I’ve developed a tic. As I type on the computer, my vision is periodically drawn to the upper left corner of my computer screen. And by periodically, I mean every 10 seconds.

If we avoid some tasks because they don’t provide an immediate payoff, then e-mail is like the holy grail of discounted utility theory. Ping! You’ve got mail! Ping! Drop everything now!

The most embarrassing part of this is I don’t get all that much e-mail. I found this out after I decided to make a conscious effort to reduce unnecessary distractions. Not only was I not being productive; my eyes were beginning to dart about nervously, even when I wasn’t sitting at my desk.

Now, instead of checking my e-mail every few seconds, I check it every few hours. I still don’t get any e-mail, but I do get a lot more done — during the actual workday, that is.

The perils of procrastination

Is there a downside to procrastination? Other than anxiety, loss of sleep, depression and that ever present knot in the stomach to remind you that a task is looming, no.

For me, procrastination is often negative because it robs me of enjoyment. Like Dramstad, I never finish those tasks I delay up to my own standards, let alone get something out of the process. It’s great to play hooky sometimes, but I’d really prefer the bigger payoff, even if it doesn’t come right away.

The solution

For those who experience negative consequences from procrastinating, a few simple steps will go a long way.

First, focus on removing distractions. Close your inbox and turn off your cell phone; in fact, close your Internet browser completely if you can.

Another easy fix is to break down major, long-term goals into smaller goals that can be accomplished quickly. By increasing an action’s value and the immediacy of its payoff, it’s less likely that you’ll procrastinate it.

I don’t know about you, but I plan to start avoiding procrastination. I’m totally doing that next week.

For more information about procrastination, go to procrastinus.com.

Editors’ Final Note: About that headline ... how about ‘Just Do It’