This is exactly how I am but until now never appreciated the logic of it.

Every day I think of what needs urgently to be done and then do something else, like a mouse confronted by a cat. This is not quite as foolish or inefficient as it sounds, for eventually the urgent thing becomes so urgent that it concentrates my mind wonderfully (like hanging in a fortnight, according to Doctor Johnson), and then I work at maximal speed and brainpower.

I just used to call it by my own name of “inappropriate behaviour”. I see the difference in different people. When I give an assignment there are always at the moment the instructions are in their hands some who feel they are already a month behind. Others wait till the last minute – the emails I get trying to make sense of what needs to be done five days before the due date on an assignment worth a quarter of the semester are always astonishing. But for everyone there’s a different lead-time that is within their zone of anxiety and it is different for everyone. But without that pressure of being right against the wall, I often can’t do anything.