Art of Procastination a Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing

Description

Procrastination - just about everyone has struggled with it. This charming, highly readable book by an internationally recognised Stanford philosopher offers a new outlook: instead of focusing on your deficits, recognise the myriad things that you do accomplish while avoiding "the important project." Laced with stealth advice that you can put to use, it's funny, wise, and useful to boot. John Perry's insights and laugh-out-loud humour bring to mind Thurber, Wodehouse, and Harry Frankfort's On Bullshit. This very readable book educates, entertains, and illuminates a universal subject. Procrastinators will be relieved to learn that actually you can accomplish quite a lot while procrastinating. In fact, the book itself is the result of Perry avoiding grading papers, refereeing academic proposals, and reviewing dissertation drafts. It also has a practical side, offering up advice that readers can put to use. Who knew that placing "Learn Chinese" at the top of your to-do list would inspire you to get the less monumental tasks below it done? Witty, wise, and beautifully written, "The Art of Procrastination" will make the perfect gift for the untold number of lollygaggers out there.

John Perry is an emeritus professor of philosophy at Stanford University and currently teaches at UC Riverside. He is the co-host of the nationally syndicated public radio program Philosophy Talk, and winner, in 2011, of an Ig Nobel Prize in Literature for the essay "Structured Procrastination." He lives with his wife in Palo Alto, California.

"A splendid way to avoid one's work." --Ben Schott, author of Schott's Original Miscellany "Do not put off reading this charming guide to more effective procrastination. Dr. Perry is the Fabius Cunctator in our war against the Hannibal of the undone. Be gone, elephants of nagging duty. --P. J. O'Rourke, author of Holidays in Hell "Insightful, sensible, and amusing." --Harry G. Frankfurt, author of On Bullshit "John Perry is the wittiest philosopher since Marx (Groucho), and he brings to this book a delightful combination of wisdom and humor." --Thomas Cathcart, coauthor of Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . . "The Art of Procrastination is a gem--its practical wisdom as spot-on as its humor. Now that I've devoured this hilarious and insightful tome, I not only know that I'm a structured procrastinator, but I've also picked up some invaluable tips on how to fool myself into being more productive, which to put to use someday." --Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction "What are you waiting for? Read this book!" --Patricia Marx, author of Starting from Happy "John Perry's book is lively, funny, engaging and wise. And--fortunately for procrastinators--short. It's just the thing for a moment or two away from the task at hand!" --Timothy A. Pychyl, PhD, author of The Procrastinator's Digest "I intend to write a rave about The Art of Procrastination just as soon as I've cleared my desk this afternoon--or at least by first thing tomorrow--because reading this straight-talking, badly needed book has changed my life." --Bruce McCall, writer and illustrator for The New Yorker "There are lessons both deep and funny to be found in our capacity to put things off, and Perry is the ideal guide--a writer of superlative wisdom and wit. Forget whatever you were supposed to do next, and read this book." --Mark Kingwell, PhD, coauthor of The Idler's Glossary "The Art of Procrastination rings startlingly true. Perry reconstructs the inner dialogue of the procrastinator with a droll, lighthearted style that has inspired me to try his strategies (alarm clocks, self-deceptions, and self-forgiveness). --Patrick Byre, CEO, Overstock.com