Treat procrastination as avoiding something unpleasant, not as not trying hard enough
- Moderate value
- Evidence A
- Saves time
- Free
- Takes minutes
- Some willpower
In plain words
Procrastination has little to do with laziness or personality. What best predicts whether someone puts things off is how unpleasant the task itself is, whether they believe they can do it, and how easily they get pulled away by whatever is in front of them. So what helps is making the task less unpleasant and making the first step smaller, not scolding yourself and forcing it.
- Cost
-
Free. All that changes is the direction of your thinking: first ask what about the task makes you uncomfortable, then look for a way to deal with it.
- What you get
-
A meta-analysis pooling 691 correlation coefficients found several things strongly and reliably linked to procrastination: how unpleasant the task is, how far away the deadline is, self-efficacy (believing you can do it), impulsiveness, and conscientiousness along with its parts: self-control, distractibility, orderliness and achievement motivation. Neuroticism, rebelliousness and sensation seeking were only weakly linked to procrastination. The author explains these results with temporal motivation theory: the pull of something right now shrinks quickly the farther away its reward is.
- Notes
-
The size of the benefit is rated "medium" because these studies only point in a direction and never measured how many hours could be saved. The specific steps are in §4.1 (write it as "at this time, in this place, when this happens, I do that"), §4.7 (break a big task into subtasks) and §4.8 (set a date for things with no outside deadline). These are pooled correlational studies, so they can't tell which causes which.
- Evidence grade
- A : Specific numbers from meta-analyses, large cohorts or randomized trials; for law and policy, the statute or official text.
- Sources
-
- Steel P (2007). The nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65–94. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.65
Translated from the Chinese original. Original book, section 4, tip 9. Content may be out of date and rules differ by place. When you actually deal with an agency, a doctor or a court, follow what local officials, doctors and lawyers tell you. Disclaimer