Procrastination

“People who have moved to Chicago, Dallas and London get to fewer local landmarks during their entire first year than the typical tourist visits during a two-week stay…”

according to a recent study. Furthermore, John Tierney reports,

[t]he Chicagoans in the study had visited more landmarks in other cities than in their own, and even their relatively small amount of local sightseeing was done mainly in the course of entertaining out-of-towners. Otherwise, the only time Chicagoans rushed to see the local landmarks was just before they were about to move to another city…

Tierny goes on to discuss a series of interesting observations on procrastination from behavioral economists. For instance, researchers have found is that people systematically overestimate the amount of free time that they will have in the future, and so we are prone to make future commitments for which we don’t have enough time; something researchers call the “Yes!…Damn” effect.

Sometimes I wonder if the whole point of behavioral economics is to prove that, contrary to rational choice theory, humanity’s flaws actually exist.