Oh, just wait

Postpone—AND ACCOMPLISH

BY BEVERLY MEYER

YOU CAN get around to reading this tomorrow, if you like. It may still be here, if no one threw out the newspaper.

So might say John Perry, who proposes, with a nod to Mark Twain, “Never do today any task that may disappear by tomorrow.”

Perry, a professor emeritus of philosophy at Stanford, has put together the tongue-in-cheek mini-book “The Art of Procrastination.” Apparently he wrote it in order to put off having to correct student essays.

The effort yielded the concept of “structured procrastination,” a behavior that, in fact, helps you accomplish a lot by postponing things you should do in favor of other activities.

Perry also warns against the well-known time suck of reading and writing emails and browsing online, and he suggests that readers do what he does: Go on your computer only when you’re ready for lunch—you’re not likely to stay on too long.

Making lists can be helpful, but that, too, can be a time waster. And not sticking to a list can free you to branch out and accomplish unexpected things.

Beverly Meyer is a copy editor at The Free Lance–Star.

THE ART OF PROCRASTINATION

By John Perry

(Workman, 92 pp., $12.95)

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