Procrastination: putting off until tomorrow what you can do today

Individuals in contemporary society are characterized by engaging in multiple activities at once. It is necessary to manage household tasks, school, work, and many other social issues. Often, these actions require effort, time, and dedication to accomplish, which increases the complexity of these activities, and consequently, their resolution is postponed without achieving favorable results.

People usually set short, medium, and long-term goals related to different aspects of life, which implies drawing up a plan to achieve them. Whether it is an explicit or implicit plan, and an estimate of the time necessary to carry it out. If the activities that are planned to be carried out are done on time, it is very likely that the positive consequences of such activities will be evident.

Conversely, if the planned and future-oriented behaviors are not executed within the estimated time, the likelihood of negative consequences increases. In general, people who “put off until tomorrow what they can do today” are viewed as lazy, sluggish, or irresponsible, and are valued as such even by others with the same tendency.

The lack of diligence in carrying out planned tasks within an estimated time is associated with a certain subjective discomfort, and if this tendency occurs in different vital areas, then it is a concern, then it is about a person who procrastinates.

The term procrastination comes from the Latin procrastinare, which literally means “to leave for tomorrow” and has been defined as the tendency to postpone the start or completion of activities that must be done within a given timeframe, generating a certain subjective discomfort in the person.

The postponement or deferral of actions to complete a task sometimes occurs due to fear of facing it or laziness to carry it out, substituting them with other more irrelevant or pleasant situations.

It is a volitional behavior disorder that has its roots in the association of the action to be performed with change, pain, discomfort, or stress. This can be psychological (in the form of anxiety or frustration), physical (like what is experienced during activities that require hard work or vigorous exercise), or intellectual. The act that is postponed can be perceived as overwhelming, challenging, distressing, dangerous, difficult, tedious, or boring, that is, stressful, which justifies postponing it to a better moment, to an idealized future.

Procrastination harms our mental health. Various studies have reported that it is associated with stress, anxiety, sleep difficulties, and health problems. Furthermore, it impacts our self-perception.

It generates feelings of guilt, frustration, and incompetence, all of which can harm our self-esteem. Depending on who you talk to, people may give you many different reasons for why they procrastinate. Usually, among the reasons are the following:

  • Laziness
  • Lack of self-control
  • Fear of failure
  • Poor habits developed
  • Perfectionism
  • The feeling that the task is not urgent
  • Confusion regarding what is required
  • Negative internal dialogue
  • Fear of complex and overwhelming projects
  • Multitasking

Almost all of these reasons stem from a central inhibitor that leads to procrastination: lack of clarity. If you have developed the habit of procrastination, you may not have a clear connection to why the task you need to perform is important and should not be postponed.

The act of procrastinating is recognized as a symptom of some psychological disorder, such as depression or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Some researchers have pointed out that procrastination is the result of inadequate emotional management and not of laziness. As a syndrome that avoids taking responsibility by postponing tasks, it can lead the individual to take refuge in activities unrelated to their purpose.

The habit of postponing, although not fully demonstrated, can generate dependence on various external elements, such as browsing the Internet, reading books, shopping, overeating, or becoming overly absorbed in work routines, among others, as an excuse to evade some responsibility, action, or decision.

This health problem is not necessarily linked to depression, ADHD, or low self-esteem. Extreme perfectionism or fear of failure are also factors for procrastination (for example: not answering a call or making an appointment where a decision is expected).

There are three types of procrastination:

  1. Avoidance, when a task is avoided due to fear of failure. It may be related to self-esteem issues.
  2. Activation, when a task is postponed until there is no choice but to perform it due to an urgent need.
  3. Indecision, typical of people who, trying to complete the task, get lost in thinking about the best way to do it without reaching a decision.
Procrastination is a widespread tendency among the western population. Not all behaviors of postponement or delay imply procrastination. For it to be considered procrastination, the following conditions must be met:
  • The postponement of the behavior generates a feeling of discomfort in the person because they do not start or finish the task in the established time.
  • At a cognitive level, the person generates all kinds of biases to preserve their self-esteem and not feel devalued by others.
  • At a behavioral level, it is likely that they engage in tasks that have nothing to do with completing the target task, constituting a sort of distracting self-sabotaging behaviors.
  • At an emotional level, the feeling of undervaluation, anxiety, and affectivity generates a tendency towards passivity that does not motivate the person to undertake the task.
At a social level, people who procrastinate are indecisive in their interpersonal relationships, constantly thinking about the opinion that others may have of themselves, and constantly questioning traditional and established ways of doing things.

The treatment of procrastination involves doing more than just a time management course. As has been evident in various studies, it must be approached from the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral spheres, identifying the personality style that procrastinates and adjusting the treatment to its peculiarities. Individual differences, thus, make general recipes ineffective and inefficient.

Translated by Aliani Rojas Fernandez

Israel Manuel Fagundo Pino
Latest posts by Israel Manuel Fagundo Pino (see all)