Yeah Hugo Gernsback Had it not been born, it is likely that what we know today as “science fiction literature” would be something different, less exciting and certainly less popular. After all, he forms, together with HG Wells and Jules Verne, the shortlist of “parents” of the genus. Despite this role, his relevance as a publisher, businessman and even inventor, Hugo is often remembered for one of his most delirious creations: ‘The Isolator’, a futuristic cucumber-shaped anti-procrastination helmet. Your goal, repel distractions.
If Gernsback had read Democritus he could have saved it.
In a place in Abdera… Classical antiquity was an era rich in talented thinkers, but few have been as prescient as Democritusa polymath born (it is believed) in Abdera around 460 BC Throughout his long life Democritus traveled, studied various disciplines and above all developed one of the theories of his teacher Leucippus that fascinates us most today: atomism. 1,400 years before John Dalton was born, its defenders maintained that the cosmos was made up of indestructible particles that combine in a vacuum, atoms.
Throughout his life Democritus reflected on ethics, mathematics and art. His encyclopedic erudition has made him one of those thinkers to whom (with greater or lesser reliability) countless proverbial quotes. Some are ambiguous and open to various interpretations. Others, like the one he supposedly dedicated to procrastination, are forceful… and almost prophetic.
Ear pull. The phrase in question sounds almost like a slap on the wrist, but in reality it is not surprising for that reason. It does so because it is valid in full 2026. Perhaps Democritus pronounced it more than 2,300 years ago in the forum of some cop Greek, but it could perfectly come from the lips of a coach determined to motivate his followers: “He who postpones everything will leave nothing finished or perfect.”
In other words, be careful with procrastinating because, although at first it may be a relief, in the end it will make you feel frustrated.
The approach fits well with the way of thinking of Democritus, who encouraged seeking the euthymiaa term that comes from the Greek ‘eu’ (good) and ‘thynos’ (mood) and that basically advocates a balanced state of mind. It is difficult to experience harmony, stability and calm if tasks drag on that are never completed. What’s more, for Democritus the smart It is not aspiring to a fickle and thoughtless pleasure, but to a calm spirit.
Current yes, new no. In reality Democritus was not the only (or first) philosopher of classical antiquity who reflected on what we know today as “procrastinate”. Long before him it is said that the poet already did it Hesiod and one of the most influential intellectuals of the Roman Empire, the statist and philosopher, also spoke on the subject in a certain way. Marcus Aurelius.
“Do not be negligent in your actions, nor muddle in your conversations, nor wander aimlessly in your imaginations, nor, in short, constrict your soul or become dispersed, nor in the course of life be overly busy,” it reads. Meditations. His words (like those of Seneca) are interesting because they reveal that the temptation to ‘waste time’ and postpone tasks has been troubling man for millennia.
Why is it important? That a philosopher born almost 2,500 years ago would worry about procrastination (albeit with different words) is curious, but if Democritus’ words resonate strongly so many centuries later, it is because of something else: their astonishing clarity. First because they focus on a problem that (we now know) is almost inherent to humans. Second, because as the wise man from Abdera already sensed, postponing tasks can be a destructive habit that ends up weighing down our spirits and making it difficult for us to achieve the valuable euthymia.
A percentage: 20%. Joseph Ferrari, professor of psychology, warned a few years ago in an interview published by the American Psychological Association about the extent to which we are prone to postpone tasks that (for one reason or another) we do not want to face. “One of my favorite sayings is ‘We all procrastinate, but not everyone is a procrastinator.’ We all put off tasks, but my research has found that 20% of people in the US are chronic procrastinators. They put off tasks, they make procrastination their way of life.”
To understand its scope, Ferrari remembers that this 20% is “a greater number than that of people diagnosed with clinical depression or phobias” and warns of its implications. It’s one thing to postpone tasks punctually and another to “chronically procrastinate.” Whoever is in that last category, he warns, is no longer dealing with a time management problem, but with “a maladaptive lifestyle.”
“Irrational circle”. The issue would not be relevant if it were only a matter of laziness, something that prevents us from being more productive. The problem, remember Charlotte Lieberman in The New York Timesis that it also “makes us feel bad” and involves knowingly making an incorrect decision. “People get caught in this irrational cycle of procrastination due to an inability to improve negative moods around a task,” matches Fuschia Sirois, professor of psychology at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.
There are even those who, like researcher Tim Pychyl, they think that procrastination is actually not a time management problem, but rather an “emotion regulation” problem. Different theories have been formulated regarding its reasons and effects. For example, there are those who relate it to “the immediate urgency of managing negative moods” and those who believe that procrastination “exacerbates” anguish and stress. “The temporary relief we feel is what really makes the cycle very vicious,” Lieberman warns us.
Science to the rescue. What Democritus perhaps could not imagine in the 4th century BC is the extent to which our own organism sets traps for us. In recent years, science has asked itself on several occasions why we are so tempted to postpone annoying tasks and has obtained fascinating answers.
For example, in 2018 a group of researchers published a study in Psychological Science in which they ensure that there are two areas of the brain that determine the probability of a person postponing tasks. The key: brain connections. The same research revealed that procrastination actually has more to do with managing emotions than with efficiency when managing time. In fact there are authors who go further and believe that, deep down, it is an issue that affects emotional self-regulation.
Question of motivation? One of the latest studies on the subject was published a few weeks ago in the magazine Current Biology and in it a team of scientists led by Ken-Ichi Amemori, from Kyoto University, explain how our tendency to procrastinate is basically explained by a phenomenon located in a circuit between the ventral striatum (EV) and the ventral pallidum (PV), a key brain region for issues such as pleasure or motivation.
What scientists discovered is (roughly) that what leads us to postpone tasks is not the fact that the promises of rewards are more or less attractive, but rather the rejection of an initial action, which can act as a ‘motivational brake’. It may sound strange, but Amemori explains that this system “probably fulfills an adaptive and evolutionarily conserved function.”
The challenge is not to fall into the scenario that Democritus warned us about more than 2,000 years ago: that the postponement ends up taking its toll on us.
Images | Wikipedia, Luis Villasmil (Unsplash) and Brett Jordan (Unsplash)
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