Procrastination and Blocking

Book excerpt: Procrastination means putting off a difficult, delayable, important task in favor of something easier, quicker, and less anxiety-provoking. It also means delaying vital actions until the performance and result are less than they would have been if done in a timely manner. Similarly, blocking means that we stumble, delay, and panic in response to a demanding responsibility. Blocking typically occurs when we face public scrutiny (as in writing). In this revisionist and sometimes irreverent book, the author takes academic and professional psychologists to task for neglecting a pair of related problems that are often derided but that can be profoundly debilitating for individuals and economically devastating for schools, businesses, and communities.