Craig Kennedy forwarded this interesting article from the Globe and Mail. Researchers at Northwestern University have found a link between two seemingly disparate personality traits – procrastination and impatience:
"In sum, said the study, highly impatient individuals are overly keen to engage in activities where they get what they want right away and pay the costs later, but they procrastinate when they have to put in the effort up front in order to get benefits down the road."
Dr. Ernesto Reuben, one of the co-authors of the study, suggests that the procrastinators could benefit from technology designed to help keep them focused:
‘This could be addressed by giving them the right tools, such as e-mail programs that emphasize "important" messages "because a procrastinator will easily get distracted and start reading non-important e-mails.’
Dr. Reuben, if you are out there, please contact me. I’d like to introduce you to ClearContext Information Management System for Microsoft Outlook…
Thanks for the pointer, Craig!