Why Tim Urban’s TED Talk is Deadly Wrong About Procrastination

Halit Erdoğan
Sep 8, 2018 · 6 min read

DISCLAIMER: I like Tim Urban. I have read several of his writings and I like the way he thinks, I appreciate what he does. The thing I talk about in this paper is only his conceptualization of his ideas and the way he presents them. I do no think he is entirely wrong about procastination. He makes some crucial points in his talk. But the one mistake he does is deadly on its own.

If you are even a little interested in TED Talks or time management, you must have seen the exceptional TED talk by Tim Urban. In his “Inside The Mind of a Master Procrastinator” talk, he presents a very accurate -at least on the surface- interpretation of what is going on in your head when you procrastinate. The procedure happens as the following:

1- There is a rational decision maker drawn as a stick man. He holds the wheel.

2- There is also an “Instant Gratification Monkey” as a charactarization of human’s desire to achieve ‘fulfillment’ immediately.

3- Monkey takes control of the wheel and plays with it, not letting the Rational Decision-Maker do the right choices.

4- Monkey takes you to the “Dark Playground”. Dark Playground is where things are fun but not the right things to do. Sometimes they meet in a common zone, but usually they are different.

5- It’s always Monkey’s way until the deadline approaches

6- When the deadline is close, the “Panic Monster” appears, a sketch that represents the fear of failure.

7- Panic Monster scares the Monkey away and the rational decision maker gets back to business

From a more “mature” perspective, we can name them Reason, Expediency, and Fear.

Reason, your cerebral cortex, makes the smart choices and leads you to planned actions of sequences so that you can ensure your long-time life success: Delayed gratification. To the contrary of its standpoint, there is the urge for Expediency: Instant Gratification. The everlasting conflict between these two is one of the most essential struggles in a person’s life, it is the balance between the urge to seek satisfaction here and now, and the sacrifices that need to be made in order to gain even more pleasure, fulfilment and satisfaction in the future. For people whose “Monkey” is clearly more dominant than the “Stickman”, a third actor appears in times of emergencies: Fear. Fear operates as an alarm system that reminds you -or your Monkey for that matter- that if you remain in the “Dark Playground” for too long you will lose the current Instant Gratification that you have and you need to start working so that you can keep doing what you love in the long term. Fear scares Expediency and helps Reason to take the wheel. So far so good.

The problem starts with “cartoonizing” these concepts. Especially, Expediency and Fear. The enemy -and it is obvious that Instant Gratification is the bad guy in this framework- is portrayed as a cute little monkey. He is called “Instant Gratification Monkey” but for most people it’s only the monkey that leaves a mark. Furthermore, the thing that actually gets stuff done is portrayed as a monster, a funny sketch monster but still, a monster.

With portrayals of the Monkey and the Panic Monster, the entire premise becomes funny and absurd, leaving the audience with the unintended impression of everything about it is a joke. The sketches do make the subject entertaining but that is the exact opposite what should be done in a landscape where entertainment is the very thing that needs to be avoided. That is really not helpful. Because it is not enough to explain a phenomenon perfectly to prevent its harms.

Moreover, it is not only the portrayals that is flawed in Urban’s talk. It is also his “funny” attitude. He cracks all kinds of jokes throughout his talk about his procrastination. Especially, the part where he says “That did not happen.” after telling the audience that the school told him how his thesis -which he wrote in the last 90 hours before the deadline- was one of the best they ever saw. Then he says, “It was a very bad thesis” but the whole crowd is busy laughing at his punchline so the actual sentence that should have been the main focus of the story is ignored. The premise should have been “I procrastinated my thesis for 3 months, finished it in the last 90 hours but it was a very bad thesis. I could have done better.” Instead the audience is left thinking “Well, he still turned out fine in the end plus it’s a funny story.”. The effect is almost none. Also, the very ending of the speech is “We need to stay aware of the Instant Gratification Monkey. That’s a job for all of us. It’s a job that should probably start today.” After a brief pause, he says “Well maybe not today… But, sometime soon.” Again, the audience laughs and it kills the whole premise in an effort to sound “funny”. You can see how accurate this is in the comment section of the YouTube video of this talk. Some of the top comments are:

- Procrastinating by watching this

- I’m a proud permanent citizen of the dark playground

- My monkey keeps on duplicating itself

- This would be more funny if it didn’t hurt inside

The last comment explains the irony. It is not supposed to be funny at all. What is needed is the articulation of how serious the consequences can be. To make that happen, first thing you need to do is creating avatars that is suitable not with what they are, but what they mean to you. Instant Gratification is, conceptually, a monkey. However, in the eyes of Reason, it is the real monster and it should be imagined as a monster. A scary one too, like a serpent or a scary clown. Fear, on the other hand, would be better if interpreted as a brave companion -at least in this context- to the hero, your Reason. Fear can be Gandalf or Batman. If you conceptualise them in a more accurate way, you will be able to comprehend their effects on your actions and the consequences they create.

So, the practical advice I would give you is whenever you find yourself in a situation where you are supposed to do something but you do not, surfing on YouTube instead of writing your essay that is due tomorrow for example, imagine yourself as a prisoner of a Pennywise-ish clown. Instead of ‘talking with your monkey’, confront your clown monster. Summon Gandalf if you must and think about the disaster scenarios if you stay as a prisoner. Be afraid just the right amount before it’s too late. In this allegory where Reason is the Hero, Expediency is the Villain and Fear is the Mentor/Guide, your time is the Treasure. Your time is valuable. Acknowledging that is the first and the most important step to Time Management.

Your time is worth managing.

Halit Erdoğan

Written by

An engineering student who loves learning and writing.

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