John Perry
John Perry
thinking people done
I was surprised by how many people think of themselves as procrastinators, but, like me, seem to get a lot done anyway.
essence people done
The essence is that many procrastinators are "structured procrastinators," people who, like me, get a lot done as a way of not working on what they should ideally be working on.
way flaws being-pretty
While procrastinating is not a flaw, being a structured procrastinator is actually one way of being pretty productive.
mean steps may
You may lack will power, but that doesn't mean you can't take a lot of steps to make yourself more productive.
jobs real life-and-death
Nothing focuses attention like a real deadline. If you are in a field where life and death, or having a job or not having a job, depends on not missing deadlines, you need to learn to manipulate yourself to meet them; often a good way of doing this is teaming up with non-procrastinators.
bars tasks common
The fantasy of doing a task perfectly is common with procrastinators; they set the bar for success very high. Then they are afraid to approach it. As the deadline approaches, they must set the bar lower.
assessment perfection tasks
Task triage is the habit of making a realistic assessment of what degree of perfection is required for a task at the point of accepting it, so one doesn't need to rely on one's habit of procrastinating to lower the bar.
smart cookies
Voltaire was a smart cookie.
book school boys
The anceints devoted a lifetime to the study of arithmetic; it required days to extract a square root or to multiply two numbers together. Is there any harm in skipping all that, in letting the school boy learn multiplication sums, and in starting his more abstract reasoning at a more advanced point. Where would be the harm in letting the boy assume the truth of many propositions of the first four books of Euclid, letting him assume their truth partly by faith, partly by trial?
motivational comfort doe
Hope provides comfort, and hope does not always require probability.
audience large living musicians performance relationship ticket
Musicians by and large make a living with a relationship with an audience that is economically harnessed through performance and ticket sales.
claim domain forgotten illegal legal networks ought owned public purpose reason saying seem trading
They seem to have forgotten that, and are back saying the only purpose of P2P networks is for illegal trading of owned goods. We claim part of the reason for P2P is for legal trading of what ought to be in public domain. And what is in public domain in many cases.
bought diesel farmers great half information last might project relatively spot tim ton
If you have the 'Total Information Awareness' project working, it might be relatively easy to find everyone who had bought more than a ton of fertilizer and 500 gallons of diesel in the last year, which would be a great way of spotting potential Tim McVeighs - but it would also spot half the farmers and ranchers in America.
government targets
The government targets 'Anonymous' for the same reason it targets al-Qaida - because they're the enemy.