Why you procrastinate, and what actually helps

If you put work off, you are in very large company. In his 2007 review of the research, Piers Steel reports estimates that 80% to 95% of college students engage in procrastination, and that almost 50% procrastinate consistently and problematically. Those figures summarise earlier studies of college students, and engaging in procrastination is not the same as being a chronic procrastinator. The point stands: this is the normal condition of a student, not a personal defect.

That matters, because much advice about procrastination treats the problem as laziness, or as poor time management and nothing more. The research points to something else as well.

It is not laziness

Steel's meta-analysis drew on 691 correlations to find what actually predicts procrastination. The strong and consistent predictors were task aversiveness, task delay, self-efficacy and impulsiveness, along with conscientiousness and its facets: self-control, distractibility, organisation and achievement motivation.

Look at that list. You delay tasks you find unpleasant. You delay tasks whose reward or deadline is far away. You delay when you doubt you can do the task well, and when you are easily pulled towards something more immediate. Traits people often blame, such as neuroticism, rebelliousness and sensation seeking, showed only a weak connection.

Steel says the pattern fits what he calls temporal motivation theory. In plain terms, a reward that is far away feels smaller than it is, and a distraction that is available now feels larger than it is.

You are managing a mood, not a schedule

Sirois and Pychyl add the missing piece. They argue that procrastination, as a failure of self-regulation, has a great deal to do with short-term mood repair. It often happens when people face tasks they see as aversive. Putting the task away makes you feel better immediately. The cost is sent forward to someone else: your future self.

This is a review and an argument, not a single experiment. But it explains something every student knows. You do not avoid the chemistry chapter because you lack a timetable. You avoid it because opening it feels bad, and closing it feels better.

The bill arrives at the end of term

Does the trade ever pay? Tice and Baumeister followed students across a semester in two longitudinal studies. Early in the term, procrastinators reported lower stress and less illness than students who did not procrastinate. They were, for a while, better off.

Late in the term the picture reversed. Procrastinators reported higher stress and more illness, and overall they were sicker. They also received lower grades on all assignments. The authors concluded that procrastination appears to be a self-defeating pattern with short-term benefits and long-term costs. The studies do not show that procrastination causes illness. They do show when the costs arrive: late in the term.

Decide in advance what you will do

If the problem is starting, a useful tool is one that helps you begin. Gollwitzer and Sheeran reviewed the research on implementation intentions, which are if-then plans that spell out when, where and how you will act. "If it is 6 p.m. and I am at my desk, then I will open the physics problem set" is one. "I will study more" is not.

Across 94 independent tests, they found these plans had a positive effect of medium-to-large size on goal attainment (d = .65). That number is a standardised effect size, not a percentage, and the review covered goals of many kinds, not procrastination or homework specifically. What it found is still exactly what a procrastinator needs: if-then plans were effective in getting people to begin, and in shielding the work from unwanted influences once they had begun.

Help works, and it lasts

For people whose procrastination is a serious problem, there is good news as well. Van Eerde and Klingsieck analysed 24 studies of interventions designed to reduce procrastination. They found a large reduction in procrastination after the interventions, and the effects stayed stable in follow-up assessments.

The four kinds of intervention they compared were self-regulation training, cognitive behavioural therapy, other therapeutic approaches and strengths-based approaches. Cognitive behavioural therapy appeared to reduce procrastination more strongly than the others. Procrastination is not a fixed trait you are stuck with. It responds to treatment.

What to do this week

Treat the feeling, not the clock. When you notice yourself avoiding a task, name what is unpleasant about it. It may be one part: the first step, or the doubt that you can do it well.

Then write one if-then plan for that task, with a time and a place in it. Make the "then" small enough that you cannot fail it: open the book, write the first line, attempt the first problem.

And remember who pays. The relief you feel tonight is borrowed from the student you will be in the week before the exam. In Tice and Baumeister's studies, the procrastinators were the ones who ended the term with more stress, more illness and lower grades. Start for that student's sake.