I have been intending to write this essay for months. Why am I finally doing it? Because I finally found some uncommitted time? Wrong. I have papers to grade, textbook orders to fill out, an NSF proposal to referee, dissertation drafts to read. I am working on this essay as a way of not doing all of those things. This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time. All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him do it. However, the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.

Wellcome Collection is hosting two debates in London on the best and worst ideas, phenomena, developments and practises in the history of medicine - the first on 26 June, the second on 17 July. Join the debate now on this special spiked site and vote for your best and worst of medicine.

As a parent I can say "you can't cut-and-paste that, you've got to read it and then put it in your own words" but the reaction is mixed. Superficially, they tend to respond with, "why, what's wrong with those words - they say what I want to say!". Well, yes... but... To put it somewhat crassly, if I can mashup music why can't I mashup text? I wonder if there is a genuine difference in mindset here?

Over the past few months I've been describing 10 of the most influential social psychology studies. Each one tells a unique, insightful story relevant to all our lives, every day.