Psychologists Explain Why You Procrastinate— And How to Stop

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Psychologists Explain
Why You Procrastinate—
And How to Stop
Identifying why you procrastinate can help you form
strategies to overcome this habit. 
| By Jamie Ducharme
From time to time, everybody 
leaves a task lingering on their to-do 
list for a few hours—or days, or 
weeks—too long. Procrastination is a 
normal, near-universal phenomenon, 
which makes it all the more important 
to understand why we do it and what 
to do about it.
“Procrastination is not just avoiding 
or delaying a task,” says David Ballard, 
former head of the American Psycho-
logical Association’s Center for Orga- 
nizational Excellence. “It also has to 
include an aspect that’s counterpro-
ductive, irrational or unnecessary.”
Those triggers typically fall into one 
of four camps: expectancy, value, 
time or impulsivity, says Alexander 
Rozental, a procrastination researcher 
and a clinical psychologist at the Kar-
olinska Institute in Sweden. In other 
words, “People procrastinate because 
of a lack of value [associated with the 
task]; because they expect that they’re 
not going to achieve the value they’re 
trying to achieve; because the value 
is too far from you in terms of time; 
or because you’re very impulsive as a 
person,” Rozental says.
Strategies for overcoming procrasti-
nation will vary depending on why it 
happens in the first place. “The first 
step is stepping back and figuring out 
what’s going on. Identify your own 
habits,” Ballard says. “Is there one 
kind of thing you always put off to 
last? What is it that you tend to put 
off, and what are your thought pat-
terns around that?”
Once you have a clearer picture 
of your own work or study habits,
Ballard says, you stand a better 
chance of fixing them. Here are some 
common reasons you may be procras-
tinating, as well as strategies to help 
fight those urges.