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Comment by karaterobot | Hacker News Reader

> The student syndrome is a form of procrastination, because it involves unnecessary delay, which is often unintentional, and which can be expected to cause negative outcomes for those who display it.

I'm not convinced it can be expected to cause negative outcomes. It certainly can cause negative outcomes, but I wouldn't say that's my default expectation. I've exhibited the tendency to procrastinate until a deadline looms my entire life. I'm here on HN, doing it right now. But I've never missed that deadline, and would immodestly say the results have always been pretty acceptable to excellent in every case I can recall. I'd rather treat it as a way of approaching prioritization—worthy of study, but not to be treated automatically as a problem except on a case-by-case basis.

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Indeed. I think an MBA might make analogy to the time value of money concept; the time value of time would state that I'd prefer to have a free hour not working on this project now, than to have the same free hour at a later date.

In the same way a company isn't going to pay out a million dollar financial obligation early, you wouldn't expect a person to perform a 10 hour work obligation early.

And it's relatively easy to think of rational reasons to attach a discount factor to free time later. Certainly on a long enough time horizon future free time is very likely to have no marginal value at all :)

That is a neat, intuitive, framing. Thank you.

You're probably a conscientious person and from "the inside" it maybe feels like you're procrastinating. But taken on your own account, it just looks like you don't actually have a problem with procrastination and are able to prioritize and manage your tasks.

>> [Procrastination] certainly can cause negative outcomes, but I wouldn't say that's my default expectation.

I think that, by default, you have better results with more time, but that doesn't mean inadequate with less. On the other hand, there's a kernel of truth in the witticism: "If you wait until the last minute to do a thing, that thing will take one minute to do".

i would argue it can turn into positive outcomes given the right problem and certain personality. often times, if i start something too early, i end up overdoing it (from the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step). instead i'll background process, hash out an online on the side as merited, and when the time comes knock it out without thinking too hard because you don't have time

for 2 - 3 day trips (personally or professionally) i always pack the morning of a flight after making a list the night before. the one time i actually packed the night before... i nearly forgot my wallet / missed my flight (i didn't)

But wasn't it clear that the "pretty acceptable" would have been far better with extra thought and a few more drafts?

Yeah. I took some classes after completing a chemistry bachelor’s degree to enable me to apply to med school. One was an upper division physiology class. I realized early on that I had written so many lab reports that the two or three hours before the weekly lab was plenty of time for me to write up the previous week’s findings and not only get an A but have the professor single my reports out for excellence. They weren’t that good, by my internal standards, but if it’s good enough for an A, why spend more time on it? It’s not like writing the report really enhanced my learning.

It worked for me, so why not just do it in my midday down time? Class that morning, few hours off, lab in the afternoon. I just scheduled it into time I would have spent goofing off otherwise. Freed up my evenings for more fun things.

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