David Brown, Washington Post

Most people know they have a tendency to procrastinate, but routinely underestimate how much they put off doing until tomorrow what ought to be done today.

New research published in the May volume of the journal Psychological Science says that people set "sub-optimal" deadlines for themselves and would dramatically improve performance if they instead sought deadlines set by someone or something other than themselves.

In a study that should be music to the ears of every boss, psychologist Dan Ariely at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a colleague said people performed best when they were given evenly spaced deadlines and monitoring. "People need to figure out some external precommitment mechanisms," said Ariely. "You could give a friend $50 and say if I don't finish this [task], don't give it back to me."

Ariely cited the example of a drug clinic in Denver that asked addicts to write letters admitting their addiction and address them to people who would be hurt most if they found out. The addicts then agreed that the clinic would mail the letters if they failed random drugs tests.

"It is a binding mechanism," said Ariely. "The best deadlines are things that people don't fix themselves."