Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?

That seems to be the prevailing attitude in the country today. How does that affect innovation? Jared points us to a CNN article titled Put off reading this until tax time: Americans procrastinate. (I'd link you there, but they have pulled the article.) A Canadian psychologist took ten years to complete a study indicating that 26% of Americans consider themselves procrastinators. He was supposed to complete the project in five years, but must have procrastinated himself. I am surprised it was going to take five years. I could have told you that people procrastinate in about five minutes (well, that is if I procrastinate getting the words out of my mouth). I am also surprised that the percentage is so low. I do believe that procrastination is one of the key obstacles to innovation. If we always wait until the last minute, then there is no way that we can truly be proficient in what we do. Here's a thought. Start early and set intermediate deadlines. You may be surprised what you can accomplish and learn.

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Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems where he maintains a blog on business and technology.