The article formally integrates prospect theory, under the section CPT. CPT is actually the next update to prospect theory by Kahneman and Tversky, see pages 894-895 (e.g., "Consequently, other researchers have already proposed various integrations of prospect theory with some hyperbolic time-discounting function").

Yes, I'm aware of that. I was pointing out that the additional complication of hyperbolic discounting isn't necessary; in helping dozens of people work through procrastination difficulties, and myself through many more dozens of specific instances, hyperbolic discounting hasn't been particularly relevant to the process. Frankly, it's never come up. In virtually all cases, any discounting effects have been dominated by more fundamental factors like negative value perceptions, and getting rid of those perceptions means the discount on the positive value is irrelevant.

(Note that plain old prospect theory is enough to predict this: if losses count double relative to gains, you get bigger wins by reducing losses than you do increasing expected value gains.)

What precise techniques do you take issue with?

I don't recall seeing anything in The Procrastination Equation that qualified in my mind as a "technique"; it looked more like "advice" to me, and I try not to deal in advice, if I can avoid it.

The distinction for me is that a technique would involve cognitive steps that would repeatably bring about a change in behavior, without requiring the steps themselves to be repeated for that particular instance of procrastination. (Or if some repetition were required, it should be an extremely simple technique!)

To my recollection, there was nothing in the book that claimed to be such, or provided claims of better results, repeatability, ease-of-training, or ease-of-use than techniques I already used or taught. That's the criterion I use when reading self-help materials: if a technique or method isn't claimed to be at least as good as something I've already tested and found useful, I don't bother testing it.

Generally speaking, the absence of sufficiently-specific mental steps and the absence of a claim of repeatability means there's no "technique" there, in the sense of "here are the steps to break down and clean a model 36X carburetor". There's just "advice" as in, "you might want to check the carburetor if your car isn't starting". It was this latter type of advice that I recall having found in TPE; if there was an actual technique in the book, it was quite well-hidden.

Think of the book as version 1.0. What do you want in the next upgrade?

Er, nothing? ;-) I don't care about the book. I guess from the hints you're dropping that you're the author? I'm not interested in having an improved set of techniques in the book, unless they claim greater ease or effectiveness along the criteria I mentioned above. I have and teach plenty of techniques that work quite well.

What my comment was saying is simply that science has not actually caught up to the in-field knowledge of people like myself who actually fix people's procrastination. When I read books on procrastination, I use them to harvest the knowledge of other practitioners, and of course knowing about the science is nice if it leads to new ideas for practical techniques.

The reason I said your book was rubbish from a practical perspective is because it contained nothing I wasn't teaching people in 2006, except an added fudge factor called "impulsivity". And it ignores virtually every piece of brain mechanics that's actually involved in fixing the types of chronic procrastination problems I help people with, such as fear of failure, stereotype threats, mis-set expectations, "should" beliefs, and so on.

Again, I could be in error on this point, it's been a long time since I read the book, but I seem to recall it basically offered advice at the level of, "don't think that way" or "think something else". And in my experience, that detail level is useless for teaching someone to actually think in a particular way that resolves a problem.

It sounds to me like our goals differ in any case; note for example:

ones that has been successfully used to increase self-regulaton.

If I understand this statement correctly, our goals are actually opposed: I do not want to increase anybody's self-regulation; I want them to naturally do the right thing, without any conscious self-regulation required. A technique I use or teach has to have the effect of altering ongoing motivation with respect to a task, preferably after a single application of the technique, and without requiring someone to change their environment or alter their incentives externally. (e.g. rewards, environment changes, etc.)

Did your book even claim to offer anything like that? If so, I missed it.