La Salle Professor: People Procrastinate To Stay Safe, Avoid Making Mistakes
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- La Salle University professor Brother Arthur Bangs spoke with Talk Radio 1210 WPHT midday host Dom Giordano about the reasons why so many people procrastinate.
"If I'm not sure how to do something, then quite often I won't take time out to figure out how do I do it, so I'll just put it off, because I don't want to be challenged."
Bangs says he's found people hide behind the "perfectionist" excuse as to why they are not finished with whatever project they were supposed to complete.
"Who's a perfectionist? Who does everything completely perfect anyway? So I think, hidden behind that is the idea that it is very safe—it is safer to do nothing, or there's a fear of not doing well. I can't be judged that I'm doing wrong if I don't do it. I can put it off. I made no mistake; I didn't try it."
Bangs feels that the worst procrastinators are students, and while he personally doesn't take away points on late papers, he has observed that "those that don't do things on time will not do well on the tests anyway, so their marks are going to suffer."
"The students know that this counts toward their final grade, so they put it off and either they don't know how to do it or they fear that they won't be able to do it well. So, why face the music?"