I'm not sure that I buy his evolutionary biology argument, but he's right that it's more difficult to get to grips with long-term abstract tasks than it is with immediate needs, whether those originate internally or externally. This is particularly challenging for self-study and other non-conventional forms of education; the face-to-face interactions with instructors and other students, the framework of a rigid class schedule, and the learning-specific setting of a classroom all contribute to the learning process by providing tangible environmental cues for the brain which are associated with the subject(s) of study. This might also explain why some recent graduates struggle to adjust to the new and different demands of the workplace :-)

One method I've found helpful for overcoming my own tendency to procrastinate is to create my own environmental cues instead of wishing I had an academic institution to provide them. Having specific clothes, music and similar things that you associate with your study or project can be very effective. If you had a long-term goal of being a doctor, for example, it might be helpful to put on a lab coat even if you are currently studying something you don't like in order to get into medical school later. If you're doing a lot of work or study on the computer, create a new user with a different wallpaper, color scheme, and desktop for work on the long term project. Keep your leisure browsing/gaming/whatever in a different environment from your task-oriented one. If you're an entrepeneur, photoshop yourself onto the cover of Fortune as a joke and hang it on your wall. The sub-headings can be little reminders about staying ahead of the competition, or keeping your edge, or whatever cues you effectively. Go to professional conferences and chat to the sort of people that you wish to have in your peer group. Sign up for magazines or other marketing materials so that you get random reminders of your future falling into your mailbox (most of which will be junk mail, but it will be a better class of junk mail than you had been getting).

In short, surround yourself with things that help you stay emotionally connected to your goal. 'Fake it till you make it,' not to deceive others about the progress or success you have achieved so far, but to bypass the analytical part of your brain and give the more instinctual/emotional part the feeling of what achieving your goal will be like.