It’s a classic dilemma. A deadline is coming up, but you’re not quite finished. Do you hand in the work on time in its half-baked state, or do you miss the deadline, use the extra time to improve the work and hand it in late? Now, it seems, we have a scientific answer to this question. A study published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes this month found that the same piece of work is judged more harshly if it is handed in late than if it is handed in on time. Procrastinate at your peril, the study suggests, because it really does matter if you don’t make that deadline.

This news didn’t strike fear into my heart for a couple of reasons. First, it feels intuitive. If you go to a restaurant and order food, and then it takes ages to come, you want that food to be extra delicious to make up for the time you have sat there getting irritated waiting for it. Second, I am a punctual person. I meet the vast majority of my deadlines. But, for me, procrastination is integral to achieving that. So the takeaway from a study like this can’t, I think, be the abandonment of procrastination in toto.

My ideal working day as a writer includes a certain amount of doing nothing. Not time off from working, strictly, but time when I am just thinking. People generally hate it when I talk about this. Fair enough. What an annoying thing to say, for instance, to a doctor friend: that my work requires dedicated time when I am looking........

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