Procrastination: Definition, Types, & How To Stop

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph. D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
How do we stop putting things off that need to get done? Read this article to learn about the science of procrastination and how to change one’s ways.
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Please don’t ask me how long it took to write this article. I’d rather not tell you about all the other “extremely important”, “time-sensitive” things I simply had to do first. You know, things like patting the cat, finding out what new shows are on Netflix, and cutting my nails. All of that just couldn’t wait.​
If you recognize any of your own thinking in what I just wrote, welcome to the Procrastination Club. Almost everybody I know is a member. Why is procrastination so pervasive, and what can we possibly do to procrastinate less? I encourage you to dive into this article, which should provide plenty of answers – as long as you don’t put off reading it.

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What Is Procrastination? (A Definition)

Guess what? Psychologists are far from immune to procrastination, which might explain why they have done tons of research on the topic. Accordingly, I am excited to share with you a comprehensive definition of procrastination. All these details are worth including, because as we’ll see, some behaviors that look like procrastination can actually be helpful.
 
Klingsieck (2013) says that for somebody to be procrastinating, they must be doing the following:
a)     Not doing something that they intend to do.
b)    Intending to do something important to them.
c)     Not restrained by any external circumstances from doing the thing.
d)    Facing negative consequences if they do not do the thing.
e)     Experiencing negative emotions as a result of not doing the thing.
 
To put all of that into a sentence, procrastinating is voluntarily delaying an important task, even though it feels bad to delay and it will make things worse for you (Steel, 2007). When people procrastinate, they are behaving illogically – they have no rational excuse for delaying the task, and any benefits that come from delaying the task are outweighed by the negative consequences of doing so (Klingsieck, 2013).
 
When we procrastinate, we have an intention to do something but are not in action, so it is often described as a failure of self-regulation (Steel, 2007). Interestingly, it wasn’t until a couple hundred years ago that the word “procrastinate” acquired this connotation. The Latin verb procrastinare simply means “putting forward until tomorrow”; it is only in modern industrial times, with our strong emphasis on working hard, being punctual, and being as efficient as possible, that procrastination has acquired such a negative meaning (Ferrari et al., 1995).

Opposite of Procrastination

The opposite of procrastination is completing a task at the optimal time for it. For example, if I know that I have a busy afternoon and evening ahead of me, and I do my best writing in the morning, the right time to write this article is after breakfast. I am not procrastinating if I write at the most convenient and effective time for writing.

However, putting things off because now is NOT the right time for them is not procrastination. This is called strategic delay (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013). One way you can tell the difference is that if you are procrastinating, you will likely feel bad about it, whereas strategically delaying a task involves a strong justification that means the delay is not stressful (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013). As an example, if this morning I put off writing an email because I have not received all the information I need to write it, but I fully expect to receive that information by the afternoon, then I am strategically delaying and not procrastinating.
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Similarly, scholars suggest that there are times when what looks like procrastinating may actually be beneficial and adaptive (Schraw et al., 2007). If I know my energy levels are really low after lunch, it may be more effective for me to delay a thinking-intensive task for now, and work on some data entry instead. As another example, if I am being extremely effective in one task, it may be a disadvantage to my productivity to switch to another task right now.

Procrastination Types

While it is possible to procrastinate on just about anything, some types of procrastination happen more often than others. Procrastinating on academic tasks is one of the most common (and commonly studied) types (Steel, 2007), with most students procrastinating at least sometimes. Procrastination in professional settings is also common (Steel et al., 2001).
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We can also differentiate between procrastination regarding actions and procrastination of decisions (Ferrari et al., 1995). I remember friends in high school who agonized until the very last day to choose which college they would attend, but even day-to-day procrastination, such as picking an outfit or what to cook for dinner, can cause us considerable distress (Milgram et al., 1998). For example, I know I have procrastinated on buying a plane ticket by spending excessive amounts of time trying to find the optimal balance of cost and convenience; it was not worth the extra time I spent on the task.

Yet another distinction has been drawn between “active” and “passive” procrastinators. Passive procrastinators are thought to procrastinate because they are stuck in indecision and unable to take action, while active procrastinators are defined as the people who know they work best under pressure and therefore deliberately choose to procrastinate (Chu & Choi, 2005). People who actively procrastinate may not be as stressed out by their procrastination, although it is not clear if their procrastination style saves them from all the stress that simply not procrastinating would (Chu & Choi, 2005).

Here's one more kind of procrastination that I was amused to find that psychologists have studied: bedtime procrastination! People who have a harder time regulating themselves may procrastinate on going to bed and get poorer sleep as a result (Kroese et al., 2014). I’d rather not think about how many unnecessary Internet rabbit holes I’ve gone down in my own bedtime procrastination.

Examples of Procrastination

Here are a few examples of procrastination from a typical day in the graduate student life:
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1)    “I’ll answer that email later.” I don’t know about you, but I rarely get excited when I receive an email that requires a detailed reply. Much easier to read the other emails first, click on those links to the clearance sale, or go clear out my spam folder.
2)    “I deserve a little break.” Funny how this initially valid statement can get extended into an hour of talking to a roommate or general putzing around the house.
3)    “There’s leftovers in the fridge anyways.” I know I’d eat a lot healthier if I didn’t put off cooking meals so much.

Causes of Procrastination

Okay, so now that we know all about what procrastination is, why do we do it so much? Psychologists have a couple theories.

As mentioned before, one idea is that people who procrastinate are not practicing effective self-regulation in that moment (Wolters et al., 2017). Indeed, lots of evidence shows that people who procrastinate more are less able to self-regulate in general (Ferrari et al., 1995).

Specifically, people may be having trouble regulating their responses when they find certain things aversive (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013). When faced with a task that is frustrating or unpleasant, procrastinators turn to a different behavior that feels better – this helps them regulate their moods (Harrington, 2005; Sirois & Pychyl, 2013).

This pattern may be compounded by unhelpful thoughts. For example, if I don’t believe that I can complete a task, or I don’t see myself as a hard worker, I am more likely to procrastinate (Klassen et al., 2008). Or if I have a fear of failure or perfectionistic tendencies, I may avoid my work from fear of doing a bad job. In fact, we may even unconsciously self-sabotage through procrastination in order to confirm our negative beliefs to ourselves (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013).
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In personality terms, people who procrastinate more also tend to have higher levels of neuroticism (the tendency to experience negative emotions) and lower levels of conscientiousness (the tendency to follow rules and honor commitments) (Johnson & Bloom, 1995). I bet this intuitively makes sense to you – the more negative feelings you experience, the more likely you are to try to avoid them, and the less conscientious you are, the easier it is to justify delaying a task.

How to Stop Procrastination

Formal interventions like therapy or skills groups focus on three approaches: learning how to self-regulate, building self-confidence and a “can-do” mentality, and building social support (Schouwenberg, 2004). There is research evidence to suggest that procrastination interventions based in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) seem to be helpful (Rozental et al., 2018; Steel, 2007; van Eerde & Klingsieck, 2018). Let’s look at some CBT-style actions you can take to reduce procrastination through each of those three approaches (Schouwenberg, 2004);

Self-regulatory skills ​
Self-regulatory skills often look like creating a work environment that triggers the desire to procrastinate less often. For example, one can reduce the number of distractors in one’s work environment by eliminating notifications from email, text, and social media apps, or even choose to block Internet access entirely during tasks that do not require the Internet. Another method is to use more active time management techniques, such as blocking out certain times of day for certain tasks, establishing deadlines, and creating systems for tracking and celebrating incremental progress through a task.

Changing one’s attitude 
Changing one’s attitude toward work typically means identifying the unhelpful thoughts that keep one procrastinating and working to replace them with more helpful thoughts. For example, if you notice that you often say to yourself, “I will never finish this,” you might help yourself by responding to that voice with, “When I work at things, I always make some progress, so it’s worth it to try right now.”

Social support
Finally, having the support of other people can help in two ways. First, procrastinating behaviors often leave us feeling ashamed and isolated, but hearing that other people go through the same challenges can reduce our negative feelings. Second, social support can be very practical, such as asking a friend to be your accountability buddy or making a commitment to send a check-in text about task completion at lunchtime each day.

Taking steps like these, which may be easier with the help of a mental health provider or academic coach, can improve your time management skills and your psychological flexibility – the ability to respond adaptively to tough situations – which can further decrease your drive to procrastinate (Hailikari et al., 2021).

For more practical tips to build on the background information and suggestions you’ve already read so far, check out this article: 11 Practical Ways to Stop Procrastination.

Procrastination Effects

As I imagine you’ve experienced yourself, procrastination does not feel good. Psychologists have indeed found that when people procrastinate more, they experience more psychological distress, including depression and anxiety (Eisenbeck et al., 2019). Unfortunately, that’s not all: procrastination is also associated with higher levels of overall stress (Sirois et al., 2003), worse academic performance (Kim & Seo, 2015; Steel et al., 2001), and (unsurprisingly) less effort to take good care of oneself, such as getting treatment for medical concerns (Sirois et al., 2003).

Procrastination Facts

Here are a few procrastination facts that should help all of us judge ourselves a little bit less for being procrastinators. First, more than half of college students regularly engage in procrastination, and nearly all have done it at least once (Ozer et al., 2009). Second, among adults who aren’t in school, one in five say that they are chronic procrastinators (Harriott & Ferrari, 1996). Finally, people appear to procrastinate less as they get older (Steel, 2007).

What does all this tell us? I hope the takeaway message can be that procrastination is so common that it’s not worth getting overly upset at ourselves about, and thankfully, we can and will change in our procrastination habits over time.

Video: Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator​

Articles Related to Procrastination

Want to learn more? Here are some related articles that might be helpful.

Books Related to Procrastination

To keep learning, here are some books to explore:​​

Final Thoughts on Procrastination

Would you believe that when I got to this part of the article – the very last part I had left to write – one of my first thoughts was, “why don’t you take a break and work on something else for a bit?” The urge to procrastinate may always be there, whether I’m about to start a task or about to finish it. I try my best not to judge myself for when these thoughts come up or if I act on them at times. Procrastination is a natural human behavior, one that I hope you now feel slightly more ready to accept – and change – in yourself.  

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