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The habit of putting things off: procrastination as a signal, not a vice

Procrastination is the one kind of “laziness” that wears you out more than work does: you are neither doing the task nor resting — you are left hanging somewhere in between, paying for it in guilt. The first thing to understand is that this is not a character flaw. More often than not it is a signal — and it has something to say.

  • Lyudmila Chernysheva, psychologist and hypnotherapist
  • Updated: September 27, 2026
A round clock face without hands on a light wall

What is really being put off

Most often, what gets put off is not the task itself but the feeling it carries[1]. Fear of being judged: as long as it is not done, you have not failed yet. Perfectionism: “perfectly or not at all” reliably chooses “not at all”. Boredom and pointlessness: the mind sabotages whatever it cannot see itself in[2]. Or overload: a task with no edges (“sort out the website”) is frightening precisely because it has no shape. Name the feeling — and you have your key. If you are putting off everything, including things you enjoy, and you have no energy, it may be low mood or burnout rather than procrastination. If trouble getting started goes back to childhood, read the article on ADHD.

Why willpower does not help

Willpower is an unreliable resource, while avoidance is a perpetual-motion machine: every act of putting off brings immediate relief, and the brain faithfully records that relief as a reward[1]. Fighting it with the brute force of “pull yourself together” is like trying to put out a bonfire with a fan.

What works

Lower the threshold: not “write the report” but “open the file and write three lines” — resistance lives on the threshold, and once you are over it there is almost none left. Define “good enough” in advance: the point at which the task counts as finished and no more polishing is allowed. Give the task edges: 25 minutes on a timer with the right to stop — and that right is what makes it work. And give the task its meaning back, or admit honestly that it has none: tasks you have been putting off for years sometimes do not need doing at all — they need burying, with ceremony and with relief.

Procrastination and anxiety: what the research shows

Chronic procrastination goes hand in hand with anxiety[3] and with self-criticism[1], not with laziness. In a meta-analysis of interventions against procrastination, CBT-based approaches — the ones that teach you to cope with avoidance[4] — had the strongest effect.

Sources

  1. Sirois F., Pychyl T. (2013). Procrastination and the Priority of Short-Term Mood Regulation: Consequences for Future Self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115–127, DOI 10.1111/spc3.12011
  2. Steel P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65–94, DOI 10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.65
  3. Johansson F., Rozental A., Edlund K., et al. (2023). Associations Between Procrastination and Subsequent Health Outcomes Among University Students in Sweden. JAMA Network Open, 6(1), e2249346, DOI 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.49346
  4. van Eerde W., Klingsieck K. B. (2018). Overcoming procrastination? A meta-analysis of intervention studies. Educational Research Review, 25, 73–85, DOI 10.1016/j.edurev.2018.09.002

The limits of this article

This article is for information only: it does not replace a consultation or a doctor's help.

If you feel very bad right now — in Kazakhstan call 112 or 103; free round-the-clock psychological help — 1303 (Almaty).

If important things have been sliding to “later” for years, in a session we can look at which feeling you are putting off along with them.

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