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Equation for Procrastination

Kevin M.Kevin M.
edited December 2008 in General
A psychologist at University of Calgary developed this equation for procrastination...basically he says that people tend to postpone things with delayed rewards in favour of activities that offer immediate rewards.

The equation is U=EV/ID.

The '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.


Article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3660232/Academics-invent-a-mathematical-equation-for-why-people-procrastinate.html#

Comments

  • lazyGUY
    edited December 2008
    hahahah i saw this on digg, while i was procrastinating
  • schmoey
    edited December 2008
    I like this too :)
    http://mongkol.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/flowchart1.jpg
  • Agentbob
    edited December 2008
    If some company comes up with a cure to procrastination, they could be trillionaires.
  • schmoey
    edited December 2008
    Yeah, they probably can right now, but are just too busy procrastinating.
  • Student0667
    edited December 2008
    Agentbob;42545 said:
    If some company comes up with a cure to procrastination, they could be trillionaires.
    My method is really simple: remove everything that you procrastinate with. For example, I would often doze off and surf the web instead of writing my paper. I therefore unplug my LAN.
  • vonnie
    edited December 2008
    Someone posted this up on Facebook too lol. I read it this morning...

    He probably derived the equation when procrastinating haha.
  • DaNoobie
    edited December 2008
    lol those college students are using CRTs, must suck to be them!

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