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98 End Procrastination Now!

• The fundamental attribution error is among the best-validated
heuristics. This is the tendency to see your own errors as situ-
ational and explainable. When observing the errors of others,
however, you do the opposite: you downplay situational fac-
tors and attribute poor results to character flaws, such as
“laziness.” This is part of a tendency to understand your
own situation and exonerate yourself from blame, and then
blame the other guy for actions that you wouldn’t blame
yourself for if you were the actor. If you rely heavily on “gut”
impressions, your decisions are likely to be arbitrary and biased.
Saying that you rely on gut impressions is often a cover for
expediency procrastination. When you rely on gut impressions,
you don’t have to prepare and make a studied decision.
Thus, relying on gut feelings can be unwise.

Heuristics are normally more efficient than the automatic re-
actions of perception, where a whisper of negative emotion is suf-
ficient to trigger a procrastination sequence. However, because
heuristics are blanket rules, they are normally inferior to a rea-
soned-out assessment. Here is a brief proactive coping approach
for improving heuristic-biased decision making by adding some
reflective components.

Awareness: Separate perceptual Action: Decide which of the differ-
reactions from heuristics from ent decision-making responses is
reflective preparation. By doing so, appropriate for the situation.
you’ll know where you stand in Does the urge to diverge fit with
decision-making situations. your longer-term objectives? Are
the heuristics in this case free from
realty-distorting bias? What does
taking a studied approach offer?

Worry and Procrastination

When you worry, you show intolerance for uncertainty. You fill in
the gaps with assumptions about harmful possibilities. You tense