I think everyone in the world has procrastinated. We all have experience with this don’t we?! We don’t feel like doing something, we avoid it, we do something else, we do something else that’s really productive and tell ourselves that that was a good idea (well done me!) but really we’re going to have to do that thing eventually. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we put things off when we know we have to do them, and we end up often being in a worse situation if we procrastinate too, so what is going on here. How do we stop procrastinating? I’m going to explain what procrastination is, why we do it, and importantly how to reduce this behaviour so it doesn’t interfere with you crafting the life of your dreams.

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I Hate Washing

I procrastinate sometimes. I’m a time management coach and I procrastinate. I have this ongoing behaviour, where I dislike doing the washing, and because I work from home, I could do the washing any time. I could do it first thing in the morning, I could do it at lunch, I could do it in the afternoon after school pick up, any time.

And because washing is an ongoing task, washing is never complete, there isn’t really a deadline, so there isn’t that pressure to get it done right now.

I’ll Just Keep Putting it Off

And so what I tend to do is I’ll put a load of washing on at some point during the day, either after I get back from school drop off, or after lunch, but then I go and start work for the day and I don’t hang it out straight away because I don’t want to interrupt my work. So I’m not really thinking about washing, or I’m doing other things like feeding the baby or eating lunch, and so my focus isn’t on the washing.

Then, I might remember to hang it out, but I generally get this ‘erg’ feeling, you know that feeling, like noooo, not yet. But then it sits in the washing machine for a bit longer, and I keep putting it off or forgetting about it as I focus on other things. But then it gets to the evening when I want to put my feet up or talk to Evan or do something for myself, and I suddenly remember that I need to hang washing out. Erg!

The pain is even greater than it was when I thought about hanging the washing out during the day. So I have to go and hang it out because at this point I don’t have a choice now right? And Evan does help then so that’s unfortunately a good incentive and rewards my procrastination. Very bad. But nevertheless, hanging out the washing is something that I procrastinate on during the day and week.

You might procrastinate on doing other chores, on having a hard conversation, on making your kids book week costume – the primary school parents know what I’m talking about. It’s something that you don’t want to do and just can’t be bothered doing. So let’s break this down a bit.

What Causes Procrastination?

There are a lot of factors that contribute to procrastination. There is actually a lot of scientific literature out there that has looked at what factors are related to procrastination and can increase it’s occurrence, but I want to focus on just a couple of factors today that you can really start to reduce your procrastination.

Procrastination is defined as the “voluntary delay of an intended and necessary or important task, despite expecting potential negative consequences.” (Klingsieck 2013). So in other words you are choosing to put something off, even when you know that it could be detrimental in some way to do it later.

When I put off hanging out the washing, there is a looming feeling that I might forget completely, and go to bed without having hung it out and then there are no dry clothes for anyone and I have to rewash everything, leading to even more work. So putting it off is bad and yet we don’t want to do it in the moment. It’s something we all experience but it just doesn’t seem logical.

Now, procrastination is a behaviour. This is a behaviour that comes from a set of beliefs about yourself and about the task, and this is important to know because these are two things that we can shine a light on and understand, so that you can then change them.

You Are Not a Procrastinator

I first want to focus on the beliefs that you have, and the things that you say to yourself when it comes to procrastination. The first and most important thing to remember is that you are not a procrastinator. Phrasing it like that means that you are over-identifying with this characteristic and making it part of your identity. Remember, procrastination is a behaviour and behaviours can change.

In fact, there was a study that analysed all the relevant research papers that looked at whether you could treat or change procrastination, and this is called a meta-analysis (and I’ll put all the references below), and this meta-analysis showed that procrastination absolutely decreases after intervention. It decreases after therapy and programs targeted to treat it, and it decreases after self-treatment (so instigating a set of changes for yourself).

This is really hopeful news because it means with the right information, like in this post, you absolutely have the power to reduce procrastination. So it’s time to completely ditch the phrase “I’m a procrastinator,” and start thinking about yourself without this label.

Self-Belief

The next thing to understand about your own beliefs is that you might have procrastinated a lot in the past, and so this actually affects the belief that you have in yourself.

It can create self-defeating beliefs like “I can’t change” “I can’t do this” “I’m stupid” “I’m lazy” etc etc.

This belief in yourself to be able to do something is called self-efficacy, and ongoing procrastination reduces self-efficacy. Just by being aware of this you can start to look at those thoughts, notice them, and decide if you want to keep holding on to them. If they are not helpful, try to switch them to something that feels nicer. It’s not helpful to think of yourself as lazy, it’s actually reinforcing the idea that you will procrastinate, and so can make procrastination more likely in the future, so change it. Change it to something that feels right for you, like “I’m trying my best,” “I can do this little by little,” “I can work this out.”

Your Effectiveness For a Task

Similar to this, you might have low self-efficacy for a particular task. So you might believe you can do well on one task, and so not procrastinate on that, but if you believe that something is too difficult for you to do, then this will increase the likelihood that you would procrastinate on it. If that’s the case, then the same strategy of changing your thoughts can help with this. Try on some new thoughts about the task, and then work out if you can resource yourself in some way to help you with a task. Can you ask for help from someone else? Can you look up some information online? Count these steps as part of the task and start there, before you jump into the task itself.

The Task Feels Bad

Now I want to move onto talking about your perspective on the task itself. From the research, we know that there is a powerful connection between procrastination behaviour and task aversion – so how unpleasant the task is. If you believe a task is boring, or menial, or difficult, or frustrating, then you are more likely to procrastinate. This makes sense of course, you are putting off an unpleasant task for a more interesting one.

So my next tip to help reduce procrastination is to make the task more appealing. If you can reduce task aversion, you can reduce procrastination!

Find some element of the task that feels important or enjoyable to you. Put some music on, make it a game, think about a broader or more altruistic reason to do the task, focus on the benefits of doing the task – find that important reason why you are doing it and keep it in the forefront of your mind.

My Own Examples

When I am deciding whether to do the washing, I might think about how nice it will be to have clean and folded clothes and be able to find what I want to wear, and I might put on a podcast to listen to while I’m doing it. If a task feels really difficult, then the hardest part will be to get started, so to do this, try writing a list of the first 5 really small steps that make up the task, and these can be really basic preparation steps.

For example you might need to fix the fence, and that just might seem so difficult and also tedious, so get out a paper and pen and write down step 1, go outside and look at the fence, step 2, decide if you need to buy extra supplies, step 3, go and buy some long nails, etc. And then after that you can write down more small steps and tick them off too. So really thinking about the task and intentionally finding a way to make it easier or more fun will help you reduce procrastination.

What is Temporal Discounting and Why is it Important?

There is thought to be another factor related to task aversion that explains why we aren’t just avoiding the task altogether and never doing it, we are telling ourselves we’ll do it later – we’re still going to do it, but it’s later – it’s the future version of you that will deal with it. And this is an interesting phenomenon, it’s called temporal discounting and it explains that factors in the short term are more powerful in influencing our decisions than factors in the long term. So, washing feels hard now, I don’t want to do it so I won’t, and future me can deal with it. It’s a bit like how we’ll make decisions about our current finances, but not put money away for retirement because it just seems so far away and therefore less relevant.

This is important information to have because there is something that you can do to make future you seem more relevant, and it’s about imagining the future version of yourself in their future situation in a really clear and detailed way. You might have heard me talk about this research before, but we know that imagining future you and the situation that future you is in helps everything seem more salient or obvious, and this then becomes important information that you can include when making your decisions about whether to do a task.

This happens even when future you is only a few hours or a few days away, so try to imagine this future version of yourself and the pickle that they’ll be in if they put off this difficult task. You can literally picture them in your own mind for a minute, and this can help change your perspective.

Where is the Pain?

It can be helpful to pull all this information together and think about it in this one way – I like to say that procrastination happens when there is some pain somewhere. In all the information I’ve given you so far, there has been some pain or discomfort.

So ask yourself, where is the pain? What exactly are you avoiding? Which uncomfortable feeling do you not want to feel, or which part of the task exactly are you putting off?

When you can really get real with yourself, and get very honest about the exact problem, then you can take steps to fix it.

I think for me, washing the clothes on the surface can feel really menial, like I’d much rather be doing something that has more purpose, and it’s also never done, so it feels a little defeating. So if I can think more deeply about it, and know that washing clothes is actually really important, and really bring that to the forefront of my mind, then it can increase the likelihood that I’ll do it now.

So I might say to myself “of course I don’t want to have dirty clothes” and “of course I want to wash my kids clothes” and “I like a clean laundry and an empty washing basket,” and this can take some of that discomfort away. And if I can reframe the idea that washing is never done, and just say to myself well that one load for the day is my definition of done, or whatever it is, then I can just get the task done without all the negative thoughts and pain.

Is it Just a Bad Habit?

Now I can’t get away from procrastination tips without mentioning habits. Sometimes procrastination can feel like a bad habit. So you might have one unproductive “go-to” procrastination task, like scrolling on your phone, or tidying the kitchen, or maybe it’s checking emails, I see you! And this can be a bad habit that is getting in the way.

Now without diving too deep into habits here, habits always have a cue, they have some trigger that starts the habit and this is often a feeling that we have. So when I mentioned that there is some pain or uncomfortable feeling somewhere, that is probably the trigger to the procrastination habit. So, addressing the feeling in the ways that I’ve mentioned today can help to stop the bad habit, but also this can be tackled by changing the environment, so make a change to your space or things that will help prevent you from engaging in that unproductive procrastination habit.

For example, you might close your email at a certain time while you work on a difficult report, and keep it closed for 2 hours while you write it, so the habit isn’t subconsciously triggered. Or you might put your phone in a different room while you fill out that annoying form you have to do.

Let’s Summarise How to Stop Procrastinating

So how do we stop procrastinating? There are a couple of key points.

This is a behaviour is the first tip, and we know for a fact that we can modify our own behaviours. It’s not helpful to think about yourself as a procrastinator or as lazy, because then you are less likely to think that the behaviours can change.

There are a number of factors that are related to procrastination, and the ones I focused on today were related to your beliefs about yourself, and your beliefs about the task. Try and notice what beliefs you have about yourself – what is your self-efficacy like? Do you believe that you can reduce procrastination? Do you believe that you are equipped to do this task? What help or other information do you need?

Next, take a look at what the task is like, is there a way you can make it more pleasant? What exactly is the problem, is the task too boring or difficult or meaningless? Think of ways that you can change that. Can you think about future you and reduce that temporal discounting phenomenon, so that future you becomes really clear and you just want to get the task done now?

Remember my hot tip – find where the pain is and really look at that and address it.

And finally, if you often procrastinate with the same bad habit, how can you change the environment to avoid triggering that habit in the first place.

Which Tip Will You Try?

I have given you some really important evidence-based tips on how to reduce procrastination, and I would love to know which one is most helpful for you. Please come over and find me on Instagram or on Substack and tell me that you read this post, come and say hi, and tell me which tip you are going to try.

I talk about procrastination in my online time management course TIMEWISE. Procrastination is just one part of a broader approach to time management that you can start to use in your own life so you can take charge of your time and really get to crafting the life of your dreams. Access to TIMEWISE is always open, so you can find out more here.

Now I think I’m going to go and hang out some washing, all this procrastination talk has me feeling super motivated!

My friend, tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? See you next time!

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References mentioned in the post and further reading:

Hershfield, H. E. (2011). Future self‐continuity: How conceptions of the future self transform intertemporal choice. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1235(1), 30-43.

Klingsieck, K. B. (2013). Procrastination. *European psychologist, 18(*1), 24-34.

Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological bulletin, 133(1), 65.

van Eerde, W., & Klingsieck, K. B. (2018). Overcoming procrastination? A meta-analysis of intervention studies. Educational Research Review, 25, 73-85.