Neil A. Fiore

The Now Habit rejects the standard advice about procrastination, arguing that it is not laziness or poor time management but a protective response to fear, usually fear of judgement or of failing at something that matters.

The counter-intuitive tool is the unschedule: fill the calendar with leisure and commitments first, then fit work into what remains, so that guilt-free rest stops being the reward you never allow yourself.

Fiore worked with graduate students who could not finish dissertations, and the book is aimed squarely at people whose stalling is about stakes rather than laziness.