I meant to read this earlier

This week's Economist looks at the economics of procrastination:

One study published in 2013 ranked 22,053 people on a procrastination scale of one to five. Each increase of one point was associated with a drop of nearly $15,000 in annual earnings. Those who habitually engage in “self-regulatory failure”, as procrastination is also known, are more prone to delaying medical treatment. A study of 3,525 Swedish university students published in 2023 found that those who scored highly for procrastination were more likely to suffer debilitating pain.

It gets worse. The same Swedish study also found procrastinators more prone to anxiety, stress and loneliness. A 2025 meta-analysis, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry and covering 88 studies involving 63,323 people in 17 countries, found procrastination and its resulting erosion of self-esteem to be a predictor of future depression.

These days, opportunities for procrastination are greater than before. Many people work from home, out of the boss’s sight. Smartphones offer endless distractions. In one review published in 2022, each of the 18 studies assessed linked excessive smartphone use to procrastination. Scrolling often delays bedtime, too. Lack of sleep impedes executive function, leading to more failures of self-regulation. It would be helpful if the scientists involved could stop dawdling.

In other stories you'll want to read when you get around to them:

• Who's winning the Iran war? China.
• The right's support among young men has collapsed almost as fast as it took off, so how does the left welcome them back?
• HuggingFace has a detailed analysis of the attack that OpenAI's GPT-5.2 (and probably GPT 6) hit it with when the latter's AI went into Genie mode.
• Why are some of the best shows going years between seasons?

Finally, exactly 18 years ago I read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States back to back with Paul Johnson's History of the American People. A new book by Dave Zirin takes a look at Zinn's masterwork and asks if perhaps the book has some troubling gaps. Of course, this is why I paired him with Johnson; the two historians have vastly different perspectives.