You've given me some food for thought here. My addiction isn't to email (I hate it with the deluge of spam and the constant whining of students with problems of their own doing which they want me to fix) but other online material. I think I need to read through some of this, myself, at leisure, after marking's over.
I think my addiction to doing things at the last minute is about self sabatoge. Also, if I didn't try that hard (sorry, I just put this together last night), I can't be blamed for poor quality. Rather, if and when I am blamed for poor quality, I have a built in excuse that doesn't necessarily reflect on my skills. just my time management.
I'm with Anastasia. When I was an undeergrad, I heard/read somewhere that the procrastinator is actually a perfectionist. S/he desires perfection to the point that s/he is paralyzed until the last minute. Then, if no perfection results, s/he can't blame her imperfect abilities.
I definitely think I have some of that going on.
I agree with both the perfectionist angle and the reward angle -- I check my e-mail constantly, and often it gives me one small task (answer a student's question, for example) that I can accomplish right then and there.
(BTW, I'm reading blogs right now to procrastinate ... sigh.)
-Ivy
lucyrain's perfectionist theory is very interesting. I think it might be true. I have a friend who's exactly like that. As for me I don't procrastinate as much as he does, and I know I'm not a perfectionist.
I never thought about procrastination that way--avoidance always seemed like the opposite of addiction. But, this really has me thinking about how everything I do in relation to work is bundled up in a big emotional glob of: insecurities, self-assessed failings, sabotage, desire to do great work, missing the thrill of ideas, being thrilled with a mature look at ideas, among other things.
Perhaps most striking is the idea that this malaise (that has procrastination as a symptom) is something that I need to fight my way out of. Now, that's a good plan for the summer!
In The Now Habit, Neil Fiore suggests that procrastination usually stems from one of three reasons: fear of success, fear of failure, or resentment of authority. I highly recommend his book for anyone interested in understanding procrastination and learning strategies for breaking it.
What drew me to this discourse about addiction is that it's a larger cultural framework for thinking about why procrastination has become such a major topic recently -- sure, the whole self-help industry has boomed in the past 30-some years, but I suspect there are other factors at play in understanding procrastination's larger patterns and significance, beyond each individual's personal issues.
If you are checking e-mail every ten minutes, you might have a problem?
I work at my desk in front of my computer and open new e-mails as soon as they pop up. I could never wait ten whole minutes. Especially when I'm grading papers.
I have to confess that I don't quite buy the "procrastination as thrill" explanation - at least, I buy it as *a* possible explanation (b/c I knew a woman in grad school *exactly* like this) but not as the only explanation. I've also known lots of people who procrastinate so that if they fail, it's not about their intelligence/ability but about their time management skills (as people describe above) - which is probably much more my own problem, as well. I'm also not convinced that favoring the urgent over the important is really an addiction so much as it is a) a function of modern life, where you're always asked to do more than you possibly can and/or b)a natural tendency toward the path of least resistance. I think sometimes there's a temptation in today's society to use the language of addiction a little too broadly - are all habits really addictions? For one thing, research suggests that the average person's attention span is good for about 20 minutes - then you can "restart" it by switching tasks; so might taking an e-mail break serve the same purpose? Granted, I haven't read the material referenced here, so I'm kind of talking off the top of my head. And this isn't to say that I *don't* check e-mail far too frequently and don't get more done when I have no internet access! Anyway, will go off to read about procrastination in order to procrastinate... 
This is spot on. Fear of failure, nope. Fear of success? - the worst theory for procrastination I have ever heard. "resentment of authority"? meh. All wrong.
I had narrowed it down (independently) to an addiction to the rush I get when I procrastinate, and then succeed, or even the rush I get when I am going gang-busters at the end trying to reach the goal - even when I don't make it.
Now that I know why I do it, I don't know what to do about it. Being ADD and prone to addictive behavior, I DO know that addiction comes with the territory. I'm thinking I need a thrilling hobby, or something else to get my rush, then maybe I won't procrastinate. I may also need a therapist.
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