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so in college

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i was a government major which means i

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had to write a lot of papers

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now when a normal student writes a paper

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they might spread the work out a little

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like this

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so you know

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you get started maybe a little slowly

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but you get enough done in the first

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week that with some heavier days later

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on

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everything gets done and things stay

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civil

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and i would want to do that like that

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that would be the plan i would uh i

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would have it all ready to go but then

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actually the paper would come along and

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then i would kind of do this

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and that would happen every single paper

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but then came my 90 page senior thesis a

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paper you're supposed to spend a year on

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i knew for a paper like that my normal

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workflow was not an option it was way

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too big a project so i planned things

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out and i decided it kind of had to go

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something like this

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this is how the year would go so i'd

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start off light

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and i'd bump it up in the middle months

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and then at the end i would kick it up

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into high gear it's like a little

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staircase how hard could you just walk

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up the stairs

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no big deal right

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but then funniest thing happened those

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first few months

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they came and went and i couldn't quite

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do stuff so we had an awesome new

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revised plan

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and then

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but then those middle months actually

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went by

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and i didn't really write words

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and so we were here

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and then two months turned into one

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month which turned into two weeks and

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one day i woke up

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with three days until the deadline

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still not having written a word and so i

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did the only thing i could

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i wrote 90 pages over 72 hours pulling

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not one but two all-nighters humans are

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not supposed to pull two all-nighters

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sprinted across campus dove in slow

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motion and got it in just at the

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deadline i thought that was the end of

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everything but a week later i get a call

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it's the school

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and they say is this tim urban and i say

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yeah and they say we need to talk about

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your thesis i say okay

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and they say

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it's the best one we've ever seen

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[Applause]

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that did not happen

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it was a very

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very bad thesis

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i just

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wanted to enjoy that one moment when all

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of you thought this guy is amazing

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no no it was very very bad

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anyway today i'm a writer blogger guy i

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write the blog wait but why and a couple

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years ago i decided to write about

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procrastination my behavior is always

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perplexed the non-procrastinators around

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me and i wanted to explain to the

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non-procrastinators of the world

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what goes on in the heads of

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procrastinators and why we are the way

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we are now i had a hypothesis that the

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brains of procrastinators were actually

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different than the brains of other

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people

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and to test this i found an mri lab that

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actually let me scan both my brain and

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the brain of a proven non-procrastinator

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and i so i could compare them and i

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actually brought them here to show you

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today and i want you to take a look

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carefully to see if you can notice a

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difference and i know that if you're not

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a trained brain expert it's not that

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obvious but just take a look okay

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so here's the brain of a

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non-procrastinator

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now

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here's my brain

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there is a difference

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both brains have a rational decision

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maker in them but the procrastinator's

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brain also has an instant gratification

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monkey now what does this mean for the

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procrastinator well means everything's

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fine until this happens

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so the rational decision maker will make

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the rational decision to do something

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productive but the monkey doesn't like

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that plan so he actually takes the wheel

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and he says actually let's read the

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entire wikipedia page of the nancy

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kerrigan tanya harding scandal because i

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just remembered that that happened

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then

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[Applause]

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then we're going to go over to the

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fridge we're going to see if there's

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anything new in there since 10 minutes

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ago

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after that

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we're going to go on a youtube spiral

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that starts with videos of richard

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feynman talking about magnets and ends

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much much later with us watching

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interviews with justin bieber's mom

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all of that's gonna take a while so

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we're not gonna really have room on the

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schedule for any work today sorry

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now what is going on here

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the instant gratification monkey does

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not seem like a guy you want behind the

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wheel he lives entirely in the present

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moment he has no memory of the past no

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knowledge of the future he only cares

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about two things easy and fun

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now in the animal world

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that works fine if you're a dog and you

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spend your whole life doing nothing

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other than easy and fun things you're a

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huge success

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and

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to the monkey

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humans are just another animal species

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he has to keep well slept well fed and

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propagating into the next generation

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which in tribal times might have worked

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okay but if you haven't noticed now

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we're not in tribal times we're in an

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advanced civilization and the monkey

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does not know what that is which is why

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we have another guy in our brain

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the rational decision maker

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who gives us the ability to do things no

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other animal can do we can visualize the

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future we can see the big picture we can

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make long-term plans and he wants to

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take all of that into account

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and he wants to just have us do whatever

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makes sense to be doing right now now

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sometimes it makes sense to be doing

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things that are easy and fun like when

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you're having dinner or going to bed or

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enjoying well-earned leisure time that's

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why there's an overlap sometimes they

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agree

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but other times it makes much more sense

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to be doing things that are harder and

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less pleasant for the sake of the big

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picture and that's when we have a

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conflict

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and for the procrastinator that conflict

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tends to end a certain way every time

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leaving him spending a lot of time in

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this orange zone

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an easy and fun place that's entirely

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out of the make sense circle i call it

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the dark playground

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now

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the dark playground is a place that all

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of you procrastinators out there know

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very well

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it's where leisure activities happen at

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times when leisure activities are not

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supposed to be happening

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the fun you have in the dark playground

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isn't actually fun because it's

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completely unearned and the air is

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filled with guilt dread anxiety

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self-hatred all those good

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procrastinator feelings

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and the question is in this situation

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with the monkey behind the wheel how

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does the procrastinator ever get himself

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over here to this blue zone a less

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pleasant place but where really

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important things happen

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well

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turns out that the procrastinator has a

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guardian angel someone who's always

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looking down on him and watching over

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him in his darkest moments someone

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called the panic monster

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now

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the panic monster is dormant most of the

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time

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but he suddenly wakes up

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anytime a deadline gets too close or

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there's danger of public embarrassment a

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career disaster or some other scary

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consequence and importantly he's the

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only thing that the monkey is terrified

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of now

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he became very relevant in my life

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pretty recently

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because people of ted reached out to me

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about six months ago and invited me to

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do a ted talk

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[Applause]

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now of course i said yes it's always

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been a dream of mine to have done a ted

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talk in the past

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[Applause]

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but in the middle of all this excitement

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the rational decision maker seemed to

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have something else in his mind he was

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saying are we clear on what we just

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accepted do we do we get

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what's going to be now happening one day

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in the future we need to sit down and

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work on this right now and the monkey

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said totally agree but also let's just

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open google earth and let's zoom into

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the bottom of india like 200 feet above

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the ground we're going to scroll up for

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two and a half hours until we get to the

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top of the country so we can get a

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better feel for india

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so that's what we did that day

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[Applause]

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as six months turned into four and then

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two and then one the people of ted

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decided to release the speakers and i

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opened up the website and there was my

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face staring right back at me and guess

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who woke up

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so the panic monster starts losing his

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mind and a few seconds later the whole

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system's in mayhem

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and the monkey who remember he's

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terrified of the panic monster boom he's

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up the tree

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and finally finally the rational

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decision maker can take the wheel and i

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can start working on the talk now the

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panic monster explains all kinds of

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pretty insane procrastinated behavior

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like how someone like me could spend two

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weeks unable to start the opening

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sentence of a paper

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and then miraculously find the

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unbelievable work ethic to stay up all

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night and write eight pages

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and this entire situation with the three

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characters this is the procrastinator

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system

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it's not pretty but in the end

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it works and this is what i decided to

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write about on the blog just a couple

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years ago now when i did

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i was amazed by the response literally

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thousands of emails came in from all

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different kinds of people from all over

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the world doing all different kinds of

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things these were people who were nurses

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and bankers and painters and engineers

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and lots and lots of phd students

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and they were all writing saying the

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same thing i have this problem too but

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what struck me was the contrast between

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the light tone of the post

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and the heaviness of these emails

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these people

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were writing with intense frustration

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about what procrastination had done to

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their lives about what this monkey had

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done to them

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and

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i thought about this and i said if the

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procrastinator system works then what's

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going on why are all these people in

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such a dark place well

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turns out that there's two kinds of

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procrastination

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i've talked about today the examples

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i've given they all have deadlines when

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there's deadlines the effects of

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procrastination are contained

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to the short term because the panic

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monster gets involved but there's a

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second kind of procrastination that

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happens in situations when there is no

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deadline so if you want to have a career

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you want to be a self-starter something

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in the arts something

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entrepreneurial there's no deadlines on

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those things at first because nothing's

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happening at first not until you've gone

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out and done the hard work to get some

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momentum to get things going there's

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also all kinds of important things

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outside of your career that don't

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involve any deadlines like seeing your

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family or exercising and taking care of

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your health

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working on your relationship or getting

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out of a relationship that isn't working

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now if

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procrastinators only mechanism

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of doing these hard things is the panic

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monster that's a problem because in all

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of these non-deadline situations

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the panic monster doesn't show up he's

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nothing to wake up for so the effects of

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procrastination are not contained they

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just extend outward forever

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and it's this long-term kind of

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procrastination

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that's much less visible and much less

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talked about than the funnier short-term

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deadline-based kind it's usually

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suffered quietly and privately

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and it can be the source of a huge

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amount of long-term unhappiness and

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regrets

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and i thought you know that's why these

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people are emailing and that's why

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they're in such a bad place

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it's not that they're cramming for some

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project it's that long-term

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procrastination has made them feel like

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a spectator at times in their own lives

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you know the frustration was not that

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they couldn't achieve their dreams is

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that they weren't even able to start

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chasing them

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so

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i

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read these emails and i had a little bit

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of an epiphany

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that i don't think non-procrastinators

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exist

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that's right i think all of you are

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procrastinators

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now you might not all be a mess

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like some of us

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and some of you may have a healthy

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relationship with deadlines but remember

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the monkey's sneakiest trick is when the

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deadlines aren't there

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now i want to show you one last thing

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i call this

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a life calendar

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that's one box for every week

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of a 90-year life

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that's not that many boxes especially

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since

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we've already used a bunch of those

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so i think we need to all take a long

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hard look at that calendar

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we need to think about what we're really

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procrastinating on because everyone is

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procrastinating on something in life

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we need to stay aware of the instant

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gratification monkey

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that's a job for all of us

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and because there's not that many boxes

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on there it's a job that should probably

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start today well

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maybe not today but

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you know

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sometime soon

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thank you

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you