Do You Precrastinate?

Unlike procrastinators, who put off doing things, precrastinators simply can’t wait to get started. But does being a kan cheong spider work against you? LI YULING nds out.

- Li Yuling

Do you reply to e-mails as soon as you can, sometimes regretting after you’ve hit the send button? Do you stock up on groceries all at once, instead of splitting the load over two trips?

If you do, you’re a precrastinator, says Professor David Rosenbaum, psychologist at the Pennsylvania State University (PSU).

Precrastination – this term was first coined by Prof Rosenbaum and his colleagues at PSU in 2014 – is the inclination to complete tasks quickly for the sake of getting them done. If this sounds a lot like you, you’re far from being alone.

In a 2014 study that revolves around a series of nine experiments involving more than 250 students, Prof Rosenbaum and colleagues Lanyun Gong and Cory Potts asked participants to choose between two loaded buckets and carry the chosen one towards an end point. In most of the trials, one bucket was placed near the starting point and the other, near the end point.

Surprisingly, most participants picked the bucket that was nearer to the starting point (and to them), and spent more energy carrying it over a longer distance. When asked about this seemingly irrational choice, nearly all said: “I wanted to get the task done as soon as I could.”

WHY WE PRECRASTINATE 

The researchers think there may have been some psychological advantage to selecting the closer bucket. “We hypothesise that participants [did this] to more quickly eliminate one goal from working memory, which was selecting one of two buckets,” says Cory.