By Dan Westell, CBCNews.ca

We note with muted amazement that University of Calgary prof Piers Steel is publishing a book. Soon, his agent's website asserts.

Steel is a proud procrastinator, so the publication of The Procrastination Equation: The Science of Getting Things Done will be a personal victory.

Steel has been studying the reasons we put things off, and off, and off, for 10 years, and spent the decades before that embodying it, his agent's website says. "He knows his subject both as a practitioner and as a scientist."

The book is serious, aimed at helping the 20 per cent of us who procrastinate to get going. But his website has a nice light touch, with a couple of quotes that ring profoundly true.

"Work is the greatest thing in the world, so we should always save some of it for tomorrow," is attributed to American humourist Don Herold (1889-1966).

The best comes from some wit who delayed taking credit for so long the quote is now deemed to be anonymous. "The sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up."