Tim Urban – The Mind of a Procrastinator

Tim Urban – The Mind of a Procrastinator

Procrastination is the act of delaying an action to a later date to carry out the action eventually. The speaker is Tim Urban. Tim gives a detailed insight into what goes on in the mind of procrastination using his life experiences. Tim’s speech was straightforward and compelling. Tim began by informing the audience that in college, he was a government major which required him to write a lot of papers. He used a diagram to show the difference between an ordinary student who works on his college paper at an acceptable rate and his working diagram, which showed the bar highest on the last day. Tim talks about the year thesis paper that as a student, he procrastinated for months and wrote 90 pages thesis over 72 hours. The main parts of his speech were identifiable as he used his experiences as an example to highlight to these parts. Tim stated that normal humans are not supposed to pull two all nights to do something that he pulled. He used a diagram showing two images. A rational mind and a procrastinators mind. The procrastinator’s brain was represented by a monkey. Tim narrates a funny lie story of his school calling to praise him on his thesis. He later discloses that the story was a lie and the hypothesis was terrible due to procrastination. He wanted the crowd to think of him as really smart for a few minutes. Tim points out that all people are procrastinators but are on a different level. He goes on to mention professions such as nurses, bankers, engineers, and lots of others. He states that the procrastinator uses a panic monster that activates them when the deadline is due in a few hours or even minutes.

Tim Urban speech had a clear transition and was easy to follow. Tim began by introducing himself as a procrastinator. He gave real-life experiences of his losing battle with procrastination. Tim uses humour throughout his speech. Humour makes the audience engaged and easy to follow. He was able to make himself relatable with procrastinators in the audience. Tim’s conclusion was excellent as he educated the crowd that every single person is a procrastinator only that some are good with deadlines than others. The end is excellent with a diagram of lifetime calendar with boxes of each week. The calendar is meant to provoke on why people procrastinate. He makes the crowd be aware on the gratification monkey and reflect on themselves. Tim uses appropriate evidence to deliver his message. Tim confirms that he went to an MRI scan with a non-procrastinator and had their brains scanned to find out the difference. The rational decision maker image was a cartoon-like structure with a wheel while the procrastinator used instant gratification monkey. He used a cartoon-like structure explaining the panic monster that is very alert in the last moments of a procrastinator. Tim uses his life experiences from colleges to make him appropriate for delivering procrastination speech. Tim says that as a blogger, he received emails from other people who are having procrastination challenge. The visual aid was not offensive. The images on his presentation had expected wordings from the two minds. He hypothetically used words procrastinators use, such as looking at the fridge every ten minutes while you need to be getting the job done. The speaker stated that people confessed that they could do a better job if they are not procrastinating.

Tim Urban was casually dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He was relaxed, as evidenced by his pacing around while delivering the speech. He seemed relaxed as he could easily make the crowd laugh. Tim had a conversational tone by using his blogging site to reach out to other procrastinators. The public reached out to him and admitted their procrastination problem. Tim admits that the panic monster was very relatable to him when the TED team reached out to him to do a talk on their platform. This recent example helps his conversation as he practised procrastination on the same audience he is delivering a speech to. He admits that the panic monster explains why he was unable to start an opening sentence for two weeks but found the work ethic to stay up all night and write pages. Tim moved his hand a lot in different gestures to deliver his speech. When talking of a funny story, his facial expressions would be relaxed and at ease while laughing as well. When Tim was speaking of a serious part of his speech, his tone was smooth yet serious. Tim Urban maintained a clear sound which was loud enough and audible to the audience in the large room. Tim exhibited relatable realities with his audience. When concluding with the lifetime calendar, he admitted that procrastinators would not reflect on the lifetime calendar immediately. Tim strength is visible through his great sense of humour. He giggled the crowd when he narrated his experience when TED contacted him for a talk. Tim Urban accomplishes his goal by provoking the group to think about their reasons for procrastinating and try to change to a better and acceptable working pace.