Procrastination means putting off something you intended to do, even though you expect the delay to leave you worse off. The word comes from the Latin pro, meaning forward, and crastinus, meaning of tomorrow. The psychologist Piers Steel defines it as voluntarily delaying an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay, and that last condition is what separates it from rest or sensible waiting. Almost everyone procrastinates sometimes, and an estimated 15 to 20% of adults do it chronically. Research links it mainly to tasks that feel unpleasant, rewards that feel far away, low confidence and impulsiveness.
What does procrastination mean?
Procrastination means delaying a task or a decision you had meant to deal with, when you know the delay will probably cost you something. The cost might be a late fee, a rushed piece of work, a bad night's sleep or a week of feeling guilty every time you remember it.
The word comes from Latin. Pro means forward and crastinus means of tomorrow, so to procrastinate is, quite literally, to push something on to tomorrow (Steel, 2007). The everyday meaning hasn't moved far from that. If you meant to send an invoice on Monday, and it's now Thursday and you've opened the template four times without filling it in, you're procrastinating. Waiting for paperwork to arrive before you start your tax return, on the other hand, is planning.
How do psychologists define procrastination?
Psychologists define procrastination as an irrational delay. The definition most researchers quote comes from Piers Steel's 2007 review in Psychological Bulletin: to procrastinate is "to voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay".
- Voluntarily. Nobody is stopping you. If the website you need is down, you're blocked, which is different.
- An intended course of action. You had decided to do it. There are thousands of things you could be doing at any moment, and you aren't procrastinating on all of them.
- Despite expecting to be worse off. You can see the cost coming. This is the part that makes procrastination so frustrating from the inside.
Steel's meta-analysis drew on 691 correlations from earlier studies. The strongest and most consistent predictors of procrastination were how unpleasant the task feels, how far away its reward or deadline is, low confidence in your ability to do it, and impulsiveness (Steel, 2007).
Is procrastination the same as laziness?
No. From the outside the two can look identical, because in both cases the task isn't getting done. Laziness, in the everyday sense, means not wanting to make the effort and not minding much. Someone who procrastinates usually wants the task done, feels guilty about the delay and spends a surprising amount of energy on worrying, tidying and researching instead. Fuschia Sirois and Tim Pychyl describe procrastination as putting short-term mood repair first: the task brings up a bad feeling, and switching to something else makes that feeling go away for a while (Sirois and Pychyl, 2013).
| Kind of delay | Did you mean to do it now? | Do you expect the delay to cost you? | How it usually feels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Procrastination | Yes | Yes | Guilty, tense, distracted |
| Laziness | Not really | You don't much care | Comfortable, at least for now |
| Rest | No, you chose to stop | No, it helps you recover | Relieved and restored |
| Planned delay | No, waiting makes sense | No, it saves time or effort | Neutral |
If what you've been calling laziness looks more like the first row, the guide on how to stop being lazy helps you work out what's behind it.
What are the types of procrastination?
There is no official list of procrastination types. The "procrastinator types" in online quizzes and self-help books are informal labels. When Piers Steel tested a well-known research model that split procrastination into arousal, avoidant and decisional types, using data from more than 4,000 people, the evidence didn't support the split and fitted best with procrastination as one thing, an irrational delay (Steel, 2010). The distinctions below are better seen as places where that one tendency shows up, and each points to a different fix.
| Type | What it looks like | What helps |
|---|---|---|
| Passive procrastination | You mean to start, keep not starting and end up missing or nearly missing the deadline. This is procrastination in the usual sense. | A two-minute first step with a set time and place. |
| Active procrastination | You leave things late on purpose because you work well under pressure, and you still finish on time. | If it reliably works, little needs fixing. Check honestly whether the last-minute stress is costing you sleep or quality. |
| Academic procrastination | Revision, essays and reading pushed to the night before. | Short timed study sessions that start with one small task. |
| Bedtime procrastination | Going to bed later than you meant to when nothing is stopping you. | A set time to put the phone away, chosen before the evening starts. |
| Decisional procrastination | Putting off a choice, such as which job offer to take, until the choice gets made for you. | A date for the decision and a shortlist of two or three options. |
| Health procrastination | Delaying a check-up, a test or a call to the doctor. | A two-minute step: find the number and save it in your phone. |
| Chronic procrastination | Putting off most things in most areas of life, for years. | Small regular starts, and a talk with a doctor if it's harming your work, studies or health. |
Active and passive procrastination
The split between active and passive procrastination comes from a 2005 study by Angela Chu and Jin Nam Choi. Passive procrastinators were the familiar kind, stuck in indecision and missing deadlines. Active procrastinators delayed just as much but chose to, and in their use of time, confidence and grades they looked more like people who don't procrastinate (Chu and Choi, 2005). By Steel's definition, a planned delay that leaves you no worse off wouldn't count as procrastination at all. If you're reading this because the delay is hurting, you're in the passive group.
Bedtime procrastination
Researchers at Utrecht University named bedtime procrastination in 2014 and defined it as failing to go to bed at the intended time while no outside circumstances prevent you from doing so. It was linked to getting too little sleep (Kroese and colleagues, 2014). If your evenings disappear into your phone, the guide to revenge bedtime procrastination covers that pattern.
What is chronic procrastination?
Chronic procrastination is putting things off as a lasting habit across most of your life, instead of now and then with particular tasks. In a survey of 211 adults at public meetings, about 20% described themselves as chronic procrastinators (Harriott and Ferrari, 1996), and Steel's review puts the share of adults at 15 to 20% (Steel, 2007).
It sometimes overlaps with ADHD, depression or anxiety, which have their own treatments. If you've put off almost everything for as long as you can remember, or it's harming your work, studies or health, it's worth talking to a doctor. The guide to ADHD and procrastination explains how the two connect, and if you sometimes freeze completely in front of a task, read about task paralysis.
Examples of procrastination
Most procrastination is ordinary and a little embarrassing. These are typical examples:
- Cleaning the kitchen properly for the first time in months because an essay is due.
- Saying "I'll reply tomorrow" to a difficult email for two weeks.
- Leaving a tax return until the last few days, then paying a fee for filing late.
- Scrolling in bed until 1 a.m. when you planned to sleep at 11.
- Researching running shoes for a month without going for a run.
- Taking so long to choose between two flats that both get rented to someone else.
Several of these involve being busy. Tidying, planning and researching can feel productive, but they're still procrastination when they stand in for the thing you meant to do.
How common is procrastination?
Procrastination is very common, especially among students. Steel's review gathered estimates that 80 to 95% of college students procrastinate, about 75% consider themselves procrastinators and almost 50% procrastinate consistently and problematically. Among adults in general, the review puts chronic procrastination at 15 to 20%, and it noted that procrastination appeared to be growing (Steel, 2007).
What does procrastination cost?
The cost of procrastination mostly arrives later, for the person who has to deal with the delay. Sirois and Pychyl describe it as a trade between your present self, who gets relief now, and your future self, who gets the stress and the rushed work (Sirois and Pychyl, 2013). The health research is mostly correlational, so it shows links and doesn't prove cause, but the links are consistent.
- In a study that followed 3,525 Swedish university students, higher procrastination was associated nine months later with more symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress, poorer sleep, less physical activity, more loneliness and more money problems, after accounting for many other factors (Johansson and colleagues, 2023).
- In a community sample of 746 adults, higher procrastination scores were associated with having high blood pressure or heart disease, even after accounting for age, education and personality (Sirois, 2015).
- A 2023 review by Fuschia Sirois argues that stress and procrastination feed each other, because stressful periods use up your coping resources and putting a task off is a low-effort escape from the feelings it brings up (Sirois, 2023).
Why do people procrastinate?
People procrastinate mainly to get away from a bad feeling about a task. Boredom, anxiety, confusion and self-doubt all make a task feel worse than it is, and switching to something easier brings quick relief (Sirois and Pychyl, 2013). Steel's predictors fit the same picture: an unpleasant task, a distant reward, low confidence and an easy distraction all make delay more likely. The guide to why you procrastinate goes through six common reasons and what helps with each.
How do you stop procrastinating?
You stop procrastinating by making the start smaller and more definite, because the start is where most of the delay happens.
- Write a first step that takes about two minutes and starts with a verb, such as "open the file and write one rough sentence". The guide to the two-minute rule shows how.
- Pick a time and a place for that step, such as "9:00, at my desk".
- When the time comes, start a five-minute timer and let yourself stop when it ends.
- If you miss a day, plan the next start instead of punishing yourself. Students who forgave themselves for procrastinating before one round of exams procrastinated less before the next (Wohl, Pychyl and Bennett, 2010).
For the full set of methods and the research behind each one, read how to stop procrastinating.
Questions people ask
What is a procrastinator?
A procrastinator is someone who regularly puts off things they meant to do, even though they expect the delay to cost them. Almost everyone procrastinates sometimes, so the word usually describes someone for whom it has become a habit.
Is procrastination a mental illness?
No. Procrastination is not a diagnosis. It can be part of conditions such as ADHD, depression or anxiety, so if it comes with constant low mood, worry or trouble focusing on almost everything, talk to a doctor.
What's the difference between procrastination and prioritising?
Prioritising means doing something more important first, and you'd make the same choice again. Procrastination means doing something less important first to avoid the thing you meant to do, and you usually feel uneasy about it while you're doing it.
Startr is a procrastination app built on the ideas in this guide. You type the thing you keep putting off, it writes a first step that takes two minutes, you pick a time and a place, and at that time it counts you down and starts a 5-minute timer. There's no sign-up, and the web app works on any phone or computer.
Get my first stepSources
- 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
- Steel, P. (2010). Arousal, avoidant and decisional procrastinators: Do they exist? Personality and Individual Differences, 48(8), 926–934. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2010.02.025
- 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
- Chu, A. H. C. & Choi, J. N. (2005). Rethinking procrastination: Positive effects of "active" procrastination behavior on attitudes and performance. The Journal of Social Psychology, 145(3), 245–264. doi:10.3200/SOCP.145.3.245-264
- Kroese, F. M., De Ridder, D. T. D., Evers, C. & Adriaanse, M. A. (2014). Bedtime procrastination: Introducing a new area of procrastination. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 611. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00611
- Harriott, J. & Ferrari, J. R. (1996). Prevalence of procrastination among samples of adults. Psychological Reports, 78(2), 611–616. doi:10.2466/pr0.1996.78.2.611
- 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
- Sirois, F. M. (2015). Is procrastination a vulnerability factor for hypertension and cardiovascular disease? Testing an extension of the procrastination–health model. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 38(3), 578–589. doi:10.1007/s10865-015-9629-2
- Sirois, F. M. (2023). Procrastination and stress: A conceptual review of why context matters. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(6), 5031. doi:10.3390/ijerph20065031
- Wohl, M. J. A., Pychyl, T. A. & Bennett, S. H. (2010). I forgive myself, now I can study: How self-forgiveness for procrastinating can reduce future procrastination. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(7), 803–808. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.029