This explains a lot
From the abstract of "An Economic Model of the Planning Fallacy," (pdf!) by Markus Brunnermeier, Filippos Papakonstantinou, and Jonathan Parker:
People tend to underestimate the work involved in completing tasks and consequently finish tasks later than expected or do an inordinate amount of work right before projects are due. We present a theory in which people procrastinate because the ex-ante utility benefits of anticipating that a task will be easy to complete outweigh the average ex-post costs of poor planning. ... We test our theory using extant experimental evidence on differences in expectations and behavior. We find that reported beliefs and behavior generally respond as our theory predicts.
It's nice to think that turning in a book manuscript almost four years after it's due might be the result of the interaction between ex-ante utility benefits and average ex-post costs. Rather than, you know, some kind of deep character flaw.
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A good paper for a theoretical (as opposed to empirical) discussion of the planning fallacy, but their attempt to extent it to procrastination falls pretty flat (well maybe not academic procrastination per se, but trait-level yes).
Procrastination (as a trait) tends to fall into one of three categories (arousal, avoidant, and decisional). They're all moderately associated, but arousal and avoidant are behavioral in nature while decisional tends to be cognitive.
However, Justin if you think 4 years is bad. I received my Master's in Experimental Psychology in 2000...I'm just now finishing my doctoral dissertation on...wait for it...decisional procrastination.
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Ha! So do you think your problem has been arousal or avoidance?
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Heh...partly arousal (seeking other forms of enjoyment); partly legitimate procrastination (i.e., working a full time job is not conducive to writing--I have several fiction stories sitting in various stages of completion too); and partly I only in 2006 figured what I really really really wanted to examine.
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