"Transfinite Procrastination" by Erez Abrams
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"Transfinite Procrastination" by Erez Abrams
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Summary
Heavily inspired by a conversation with Keshav Srinivasan and Richard Ngo during MATS 10.0.
The week ahead of you is packed. This isn't your usual brand of busy—you're phoneless, so you can't check the details, but (as far as you can remember) every hour of every day is spoken for. Tonight will be particularly hectic…
You're mid-conversation when Someone Important walks by. They pause, turn around, and ask: "Hey, when are you going to finish That Thing you said you'd do?"
Level 0 procrastination: "I'll finish it by tonight!"
Problem: you're busy tonight.
Level 1: "I'll finish it by tomorrow!"
Problem: one day is obviously not enough to finish That Thing. And besides, you might be really busy tomorrow!
Level 5: "I'll finish it within 5 days!"
Problem: this is starting to feel hopeless—you don't have your calendar on you right now, and you barely even have an order-of-magnitude estimate for how long doing That Thing will take you! Would even 100 days be enough?
…
Eureka!
Level [...]
The original text contained 6 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:
November 11th, 2026
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MJDJyi8nSv9yoxFni/transfinite-procrastination
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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