CREATIVE PROCRASTINATION: Organizing Your Own Life

This is one of those manuals that seems to have flitted away from a basic premise--in this case, that effective time management includes time out for being human--into a million marginally related directions. Frieda Porat is a combination management consultant/marriage counselor with a marked distaste for the ground-in guilt of the work ethic, but her antidotes are awfully busy. She divides procrastination into two armed camps (negative and positive), then can't decide which she wants to do more: help us bury the former or cultivate the latter. What seems to separate the good kind of procrastination from the bad is largely our intention: if we planned a ""gift of prime time"" to ourselves, then it's creative; if not, then we're bound to suffer guilt and anxiety. A balanced lifestyle is here disguised as ""holistic time management"" (exercise, proper nutrition, relaxation, etc.); this gives way to some half-hearted tips about time management in the office and at home (have a secretary screen calls; prepare meals ahead of time and freeze them). Throughout, progress is slowed by endless self-quizzes to determine just where your problem areas are; and in between, we're advised to keep a ""time log"" to learn how we can increase ""productivity and planning."" For a more cohesive and psychologically astute treatment of the relationship between procrastination and time management, see Dru Scott's How to Put More Time in Your Life (p. 497).