Although the concept of opportunity cost is a fundamental one in Econ101, I’ve actually first heard the term from Comm101.
I’ve been, and still is, a heavy procrastination addict. I’ve been trying pin-point its source for years, and recently I had a interesting observation.
I was sitting on the bus one day, and I started reading my OB textbook after thinking, ‘I should be doing some school work because I have nothing better to do.’ That’s when it hit me, the opportunity cost of reading a textbook on the bus is zero because I had nothing else better to do. Whereas at home, the opportunity cost of reading a boring text book is doing something more interesting. That is why I procrastinate and don’t do work until the opportunity cost of slacking off, which is suffering later, gets too high.
Does this cure my procrastination? No. But at least now I can think of procrastination on a different level and know that it is perfectly economically rational to procrastinate, it’s just a matter of how much you value its opportunity cost.
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