"Procrastination is the symptom, not the disease."

The irony of this essay is implicit in its subject: Not only did I procrastinate before writing it, but everyone reading this essay—with the exception of my editor—is procrastinating by reading it. There is something better you should be doing. By something “better” I mean something utilitarian: paying bills, finishing homework, cleaning dirty windows, getting a colonoscopy, etc. From this claim arises several assumptions:

First, we only procrastinate that which is both painful and necessary; we wouldn’t procrastinate throwing ourselves on a hot spike because we would never do so. Unless hot-spiking was for pleasurable ends, in which case we wouldn’t procrastinate.

Second, what is necessary is often painful: paying bills, finishing homework, cleaning dirty windows, getting a...