Escape Artists

On the surface， Robert Capp is a true success. He’s a publishing executive at the top of his field. In his 38 years， he’s 1)overseen everything from major magazines to major Internet sites. In his free time， he 2)runs a charity that helps war 3)veterans adjust to life after 4)traumatic injury. But every day， Capp fights a battle he rarely wins.

“As soon as I have something important to do，”he says， “I get really into my head about it. I don’t do it， just can’t do it. Anxiety starts to build. If I have to arrange a meeting， just making the phone call to set it up becomes impossible. All sorts of 5)weird excuses start 6)popping into my brain. If the meeting is with someone important I start thinking，‘Who am I to be calling this guy， he’s really important and I’m not， why would he possibly want to waste time speaking to me?’ It’s truly awful.”

For Capp， this awful feeling has been one of the more 7)defining features of his life. “Procrastination has affected every part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a kid， I was always 8)hiding from responsibility. By the time I was a teenager， I discovered drugs and alcohol and these were the perfect tools to 9)foster my procrastination. Why do something I should be doing when there were drugs to take?”

His addiction lasted over 10 years.“But even when I got sober， the urge to delay didn’t get better. It nearly destroyed my marriage. It’s impossible to be in a relationship with a chronic procrastinator. It feels crazy to a partner， who can’t help but think， ‘Here’s this rational， intelligent person， so how can this keep happening? It doesn’t make any sense.’”

For Capp， it’s worse at work. “Several months ago my boss sent me a 10)memo listing things that were wrong with my performance. There were eight items on his list and all eight had to do with my procrastination problems.” Capp lost his job—although he 11)landed a 12)coveted position on a new Web site.

“Everyone procrastinates，” observes DePaul University psychologist Joseph Ferrari. However， “not everyone is a procrastinator.” Still， a large and growing proportion of the population can 13)lay claim to this problem. In a 1978 survey， 5 percent of the population defined themselves as procrastinators. Ferrari recently completed two large studies of the behavior. “We found that between 20 and 25 percent of the population are procrastinators.”

Psychologists define procrastination as a gap between intention and action. Chronic procrastinators like Robert Capp feel bad about their decisions to delay—which helps distinguish procrastination from laziness. Laziness involves a lack of desire; with procrastination， the desire to start that project is there， but it 14)consistently loses out 15)to our appetite for delay. And this is no ordinary delay. Procrastination is considered a needless， often irrational delay of some important task in favor of a less important， but seemingly more rewarding， task. And that accompanying negative feeling—the 16)gnawing guilt， the building anxiety—is one way we know we’re not doing what we’re supposed to do.

Researchers now believe that procrastination reflects the triumph of 17)impulsivity over the lure of future rewards. We’re terrible at processing time. Because our brains were built largely when survival 18)hinged on mastering immediate conditions， we engage in 19)temporal discounting—that is， we misjudge the importance of a task when it lies even a short distance in the future， so we see distant rewards as smaller than they really are. And our impulsivity never had it so good: Modern life furnishes an 20)abundance of endlessly reinforcing demands for our attention， such as the streams of tweets you 21)subscribe to.

However much procrastination reflects a 22)mismatch between our stone-age brains and the highly sophisticated environments those same brains have created， it reaches deep into our being. “It is always about choice，” observes Canadian psychologist Timothy Pychyl. And that makes procrastination 23)quintessentially an 24)existential problem. “We’re given a certain amount of time and we have to use it，” he says.

“It’s the acts of 25)omission that lead to our biggest regrets in life. Where do we choose to invest ourselves?”Procrastination， he contends， bumps right up against our commitment “to who it is we are trying to be in life.”Even 26)indecision and inaction are really decision and action， Pychyl notes.“Your indecision， your inaction， becomes your choice， your act—perhaps your whole life.” Unless， of course， you take 27)deliberate steps to 28)counteract your worst tendencies.

“越獄”人生

從表面上看，羅伯特·卡普是一位真正的成功人士。他在事業(yè)巔峰期時(shí)是一位出版業(yè)高管。38歲的他已經(jīng)當(dāng)過各大雜志及主要網(wǎng)站的一把手。在業(yè)余時(shí)間，他管理著一家慈善機(jī)構(gòu)，幫助退伍軍人克服戰(zhàn)后創(chuàng)傷，回歸正常生活。但是每一天，卡普都進(jìn)行著一場幾乎沒有贏過的戰(zhàn)爭。

“只要我有重要的事情要做，”他說，“我會(huì)為此很糾結(jié)。我做不了這件事，簡直無法下手。焦慮開始累積。如果我要安排一個(gè)會(huì)議，我無法只是通過打電話來搞定。我的腦子里開始出現(xiàn)種種怪異的借口。如果要會(huì)見某個(gè)重要人物，我就會(huì)想：‘我是誰，有什么資格給這個(gè)家伙打電話，他是個(gè)大人物，而我不是，他為什么要浪費(fèi)時(shí)間跟我說話呢？’真糟糕。”

對(duì)于卡普來說，這種可怕的感覺已經(jīng)成為他生活中愈加典型的特征之一。“記憶所及， 拖拉已影響到我生活的每一部分。孩提時(shí)期，我就喜歡逃避責(zé)任。當(dāng)我十幾歲時(shí)，我發(fā)現(xiàn)毒品和酒精是助長我拖拉的完美工具。當(dāng)我可以在毒品中飄飄欲仙時(shí)，為什么還要去做那些本應(yīng)該去做的事呢？”

他的毒癮持續(xù)時(shí)間超過10年。“但是，即使當(dāng)我清醒時(shí)，拖拉的沖動(dòng)也沒見好轉(zhuǎn)。這幾乎毀了我的婚姻。與長期拖拉者建立穩(wěn)定關(guān)系是不可能的。拖拉者的伴侶會(huì)很抓狂，會(huì)忍不住想：‘這個(gè)理性、聰明的人怎么會(huì)一直這樣呢？這根本講不通。’”

對(duì)卡普來說，工作中拖拉的情況要更糟糕。“幾個(gè)月前，我老板給了我一份備忘錄，列出我表現(xiàn)欠佳的地方。……