I don't apologize. I'm sorry, that's just the way I am.

So apparently Academics have created an equation that will actually quantify the measure and likelihood of procrastination. Professor Piers Steel, a self-proclaimed academic has spent the past 10 years studying what it is that gives people the propensity to put off what they can do today until tomorrow. Studying 250 University of Calgary college students, he sought to decide whether procrastinators were perfectionists or just plain lazy. The equation is as follows:

U=EV/ID

...where U stands for utility, or the desire to complete a given task. It is equal to the product of E, the expectation of success, and V the value of completion, divided by the product of I, the immediacy of the task, and D, the personal sensitivity to delay.

So let's put this to the test, shall we? Today, I have been tasked with updating a phone list of 290 drivers, a task which involves lots of data entry, does not have a real due date, and in actuality is somebody else's project that I'm taking over for.

Let's start on the right side of the equation. E is the expectation of success, which for me has been affected by my boss telling me to complete this task for my coworker, since she won't be coming in this week. On a rank of 1 to 10, I'm assuming my boss wants me to finish this task for her, so let's put it at 10.

V is the value of completion, which I guess would be the ultimate value I would receive from performing this task. Since finishing a project that belongs to someone else, and whose outcome would not ultimately affect me, I would put value on a scale of 1 to 10 at 3.

I is immediacy of the task. Considering the fact that I have nothing else to work on at the moment, and a due date was not given to me, this number is actually pretty low to me. Since it's the denominator, the scale is inversely proportional, so larger numbers equal lower values. Let's give it a 10.

D is the personal sensitivity to delay. I personally am very sensitive to many things, but delay is not one of them. If there was a sense of urgency, I suppose a higher value could be given to this task. Since my boss is usually too busy for his own right (and mine) throughout the day, my sensitivity to the delay of this is fairly low. I still have a few hours before he comes into my office and asks me what I do, so I'll give this one a fairly low value of 8.

Putting it all together looks like this:

U=(10*3)/(10*8)
U=30/80
U=.375

So utility for me to finish this task would .375, a fairly low chance of me getting back to this project since a utility of 1 would be a task I enjoy doing and needs to be finished immediately.

In conclusion, we find that this project has %37.5 chance of me finishing it without delay. The remaining %62.5 of me would rather read up on more articles on digg and reddit, check my email repeatedly, or write this post while I'm sitting here at work.

My God, the equation is right!

Well, back to work, I guess.

"Who's Hitler?"
-VR