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- Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator | Tim Urban | TED
Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator | Tim Urban | TED
Delve into the mind of a master procrastinator, Tim Urban, as he shares his college paper writing experience in this engaging TED talk. Learn how procrastination takes over and the struggle to follow a planned schedule while facing impending deadlines.
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Video Transcript
So in college, I was a government major,
which means I had to write a lot of papers.
Now, when a normal student writes a paper,
they might spread the work out a little like this.
So, you know, you get started maybe a little slowly,
but you get enough done in the first week
that with some heavier days later on,
everything gets done and things stay civil.
And I would want to do that like that.
That would be the plan.
I would want to do that like that.
I would have it all ready to go,
but then actually the paper would come along,
and then I would kind of do this.
And that would happen every single paper.
But then came my 90-page senior thesis,
a paper you're supposed to spend a year on.
I knew for a paper like that, my normal workday would be a lot of work.
The workflow was not an option, it was way too big a project.
So I planned things out, and I decided I kind of had to go something like this.
This is how the year would go.
So I'd start off light,
and I'd bump it up in the middle months,
and then at the end, I would kick it up into high gear.
It's just like a little staircase.
How hard can it be to just walk up the stairs?
No big deal, right?
But then, the funniest thing happened.
Those first few months,
they came and went, and I couldn't quite do stuff.
So we had an awesome new revised plan.
And then those middle months actually went by,
and I didn't really write words.
And so we were here.
And then two months turned into one month,
which turned into two weeks.
And one day I woke up
with three days until the deadline,
still not having written a word.
And so I did the only thing I could.
I wrote 90 pages over 72 hours.
pulling not one but two all-nighters.
Humans are not supposed to pull two all-nighters.
Sprinted across campus,
dove in slow motion,
and got it in just at the deadline.
I thought that was the end of everything.
But a week later, I get a call.
It's the school.
And they say,
