An Economical Procrastinator

By Kayla Klimasko (Spring 2011, Section 2)

I am an economical procrastinator. I have chosen to wait until the last possible moment to complete this blog assignment. Why? Because I am rationally self-interested. I have chosen the option that I feel I will get the most gain out of.

By saving this assignment until the last possible moment, I have put myself under the most extreme of deadlines. I work well under pressure, so this is not an issue.
There were many nights where I considered starting the assignment; however I weighed the costs and benefits between doing the assignment and not doing the assignment. Clearly, not doing the assignment won.

For example, on February 11 I had some spare time and considered doing the assignment until I realized that it was Valentine’s Day weekend. My boyfriend lives four hours away so I ran a quick Marginal Cost Benefit Analysis in my head. The benefit of doing the assignment would have been that it would have been submitted early and could have received up to 10 bonus points. The cost would have been that I would have had to leave later to go visit my boyfriend and I would have got to spend less time with him. The benefit was not greater than the cost in that case

Then again on March 25 I had some spare time and considered doing this assignment. It again could have earned me bonus points, five this time. I was honestly very close to starting when there was a knock at my front door. I opened it and there was my boyfriend standing there with a bouquet of roses; he had drove four hours to surprise me. So again, I ran the Marginal Cost Benefit Analysis in my head. The benefit of doing the assignment would have been that it would still be early and worth five bonus points. The cost would have been that I could not spend that time with my boyfriend after he had just drove four hours to surprise me. Of course, the cost was too great for me to do the assignment then.

So now here I am on April 22 at 10:32 pm. This assignment is due in less than an hour and a half. I ran the Marginal Cost Benefit Analysis in my head for the last time. The benefit would be that the assignment would be submitted before the deadline and I would get credit for the assignment. The cost would be that I have to postpone going out on a Friday night a little bit later. I quickly realized that it is Good Friday and many people have gone home anyways so there will not be much going on tonight. Needless to say, the benefit is greater than the cost and I have finally completed the assignment.