"Procrastinating was a way of giving myself permission to do a less than perfect job on a task that didn't require a perfect job. As long as the deadline was a ways away, then, in theory, I had time to go the library, or set myself up for a long evening at home, and do a thorough, scholarly, perfect job refereeing this book. But when the deadline is near, or even a bit in the past, there is no longer time to do a perfect job. I have to just sit down and do an imperfect, but adequate job. The fantasies of perfection of replaced by the fantasies of utter failure."

--John Perry, Structured Procrastination, a talk given at Stanford

Susan sez: I'm not much of a procrastinator these days, but I still relate to these feelings, It's a great essay, worth a read.