Why have fun today when you can put it off until tomorrow?

How long have you been planning your extended trip around the world? Still waiting for airfare to drop a little? Or to get those last few reward points for a free trip? Or just waiting for… the perfect time?

We’re all familiar with procrastination when it comes to things we don’t want to do, but it turns out most of us are equally inclined to postpone even the things we do want to do — like that round the world trip we’ve been planning for decades.

The problem is our deeply felt, but terribly wrong belief that “the time isn’t right.” Next year everything will fall into place… I just need to… Sound familiar?

Don’t feel bad, it’s an extremely common phenomena, this procrastination of pleasure. And it doesn’t just crop up with major decisions like traveling the world, most of us do it at home too.

For example, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve probably seen less of your current home town than the average tourist sees in a two week visit.

Why? Because the tourist has already made the decision to seize the proverbial day. For the rest of us it’s easier to defer a trip to the local museum or a visit to the park until that magical tomorrow land where we have all the free time we’ll ever need.

It should come as no real surprise that we’re all really bad at predicting how much free time we’re likely to have in the future. We always think we will have more time tomorrow, but we never do; so we end up putting off even the things we really want to do.

It’s only recently that psychologists and behavioral economists have started looking at our bizarre habit of putting off until tomorrow what could be enjoyed today (presumably because they were putting off the possible enjoyment found in studying it until they had more time).

But to prove the uselessness of procrastination, a group of researchers decided to hand out gift certificates with varying expiration dates — some got certificates that expired within two to three weeks; others got certificates good for six to eight weeks — and see what happened. As The New York Times recounts:

The people who received the long-term certificates were more confident than the others that they would redeem the gifts — a logical enough assumption, given all the extra time they had. But they just kept putting it off, and ultimately they were more likely to let the gift go unredeemed than the people who had received the short-term certificates.

Now arguable gift certificates were not a good test; after all they could be for out-of-the-way stores and the redemption process potentially involves some pain — fighting traffic, standing in line and so on.

But even if the test example isn’t the best, the underlying message is pretty clear: it’s always easier to put things off until tomorrow, even the things we want to do.

The difficult part is that, as the Times says, “once you start procrastinating pleasure, it can become a self-perpetuating process if you fixate on some imagined nirvana.”

Like all procrastination, procrastinating pleasure has a snowballing effect. The perfect day to hit the road not only never arrives, we keep adding new requirements to our definition of perfection, making it even less likely to happen.

Happily, there are some pretty easy ways to stop yourself from procrastinating pleasure. It might sound strange, but deadlines are one of the best ways to get started — promise yourself you’ll cash in those frequent flyer miles by the end of the month; book that ticket abroad before the beginning of spring or at the very least grab that guidebook you’ve been meaning to pick up for years.

Set deadlines to do things you want to do anyway? Yes, it feels a little wrong, but it’s better than waiting for that moment of nirvana that never arrives.

[Photo credit: moonlight on celluloid, Flickr]