Inspiration Through Procrastination

This program originally broadcast on March 13, 2018 with Meghna Chakrabarti.

From da Vinci to Darwin, how great minds put things off, but changed the world anyway. We’ll talk to two procrastinators: Andrew Santella, the writer of a new book about procrastination, and Tim Urban, whose TED talk on procrastination was one of the most viewed of 2016.

Your Comments On This Show: ‘Procrastinators Are The True Optimists In Life’

Guests:

Andrew Santella, Brooklyn-based writer whose book, “Soon: An Overdue History Of Procrastination, From Leonardo And Darwin To You And Me,” comes out Tuesday. (@andrew_santella)

Tim Urban, blogger who gave a TED talk called “Inside The Mind Of A Master Procrastinator.” (@waitbutwhy)

From The Reading List:

Excerpt of “SOON”:

From SOON by Andrew Santella Copyright © 2018 by Andrew Santella. Reprinted by permission of Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

Tim Urban’s TED talk:

Here’s a little puzzle. Why did Charles Darwin wait a couple decades between first observations on evolution, and publishing his revolutionary book “On the Origin of Species”? He dabbled with a variety of other ideas and experiments, certainly, but he also spent a lot of time obsessing over barnacles. He even later admitted “I doubt whether the work was worth the consumption of so much time.” A new book puts Darwin among a group of august procrastinators, and asks a surprising question: Can procrastination can lead to startling innovation?

This hour, On Point: Delay, brilliance, and procrastination.

–Meghna Chakrabarti

[Copyright 2018 NPR]