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Procrastination is the act of unnecessarily delaying or postponing something despite knowing that there could be negative consequences for doing so. It is a common human experience involving delays in everyday chores or even putting off tasks such as attending an appointment, submitting a job report or academic assignment, or broaching a stressful issue with a partner. It is often perceived as a negative trait due to its hindering effect on one's productivity, associated with depression, low self-esteem, guilt, and feelings of inadequacy. However, it can also be considered a wise response to certain demands that could present risky or negative outcomes or require waiting for new information to arrive; for instance, procrastinating on a suicide intent can serve the agent’s interests.
From a cultural and social perspective, students from both Western and non-Western cultures are found to exhibit Academy procrastination, but for different reasons. Students from Western cultures tend to procrastinate in order to avoid doing worse than they have done before or failing to learn as much as they should have, whereas students from non-Western cultures tend to procrastinate in order to avoid looking incompetent or demonstrating a lack of ability in front of their peers. Different cultural perspectives of time management can impact procrastination. For example, in cultures that have a multi-active view of time, people tend to place a higher value on making sure a job is done accurately before finishing. In cultures with a linear view of time, people tend to designate a certain amount of time on a task and stop once the allotted time has expired.
A study of the behavioral patterns of Columbidae through delayed gratification suggests that procrastination is not unique to humans but can also be observed in some other animals. There are experiments finding clear evidence for "procrastination" among pigeons, which show that pigeons tend to choose a complex but delayed task rather than an easy but hurry-up one.
Procrastination has been studied by philosophers, psychologists and, more recently, behavioral economists.
A 1992 study showed that "52% of surveyed students indicated having a moderate to high need for help concerning procrastination."
A study done in 2004 showed that 70% of university students categorized themselves as procrastinators while a 1984 study showed that 50% of the students would procrastinate consistently and considered it a major problem in their lives.
In a study performed on university students, procrastination was shown to be greater with tasks that were perceived as unpleasant or as impositions than with tasks for which the student believed they lacked the required skills for accomplishing the task.
Another point of relevance is that of procrastination in industry. A study from the State of the Art journal "The Impact of Organizational and Personal Factors on Procrastination in Employees of a Modern Russian Industrial Enterprise published in the Psychology in Russia", helped to identify the many factors that affected employees' procrastination habits. Some of which include intensity of performance evaluations, importance of their duty within a company, and their perception and opinions on management and/or upper level decisions.
An approach that integrates several core theories of motivation as well as meta-analytic research on procrastination is the temporal motivation theory. It summarizes key predictors of procrastination (expectancy, value, and impulsiveness) into a mathematical equation.
Coping responses of procrastinators include the following:
Task- or problem-solving measures are taxing from a procrastinator's outlook. If such measures are pursued, it is less likely the procrastinator would remain a procrastinator. However, pursuing such measures requires actively changing one's behavior or situation to prevent and minimize the re-occurrence of procrastination.
In 2006, it was suggested that neuroticism has no direct links to procrastination and that any relationship is fully mediated by conscientiousness. In 1982, it had been suggested that irrationality was an inherent feature of procrastination. "Putting things off even until the last moment isn't procrastination if there is a reason to believe that they will take only that moment".Sabini, J. & Silver, M. (1982) Moralities of everyday life, p. 128 Steel et al. explained in 2001, "actions must be postponed and this postponement must represent poor, inadequate, or inefficient planning".
Gregory Arief Liem and Youyan Nie (2008) found that cultural characteristics are shown to have a direct influence on achievement orientation because it is closely aligned with most students' cultural values and beliefs. Sonja Dekker and Ronald Fischer's (2008) meta-analysis across thirteen different societies revealed that students from Western cultures tend to be motivated more by "mastery-approach orientation" because the degree of incentive value for individual achievement is strongly reflective of the values of Western culture. By contrast, most students from Eastern cultures have been found to be "performance-avoidance orientated". They often make efforts to maintain a positive image of their abilities, which they display while in front of their peers. In addition, Hazel Rose Markus and Shinobu Kitayama (1991) showed that in non-Western cultures, rather than standing out through their achievements, people tend to be motivated to become part of various interpersonal relationships and to fit in with those that are relevant to them.
Research by Sushila Niles (1998) with Australian students and Sri Lankan students confirmed these differences, revealing that Australian students often pursued more individual goals, whereas Sri Lankan students usually desired more collaborative and social goals. Multiple studies by Kuo-Shu Yang and An-Bang Yu (1987, 1988, 1990) have indicated that individual achievement among most Chinese and Japanese students were measured by a fulfillment of their obligation and responsibility to their family network, not to individual accomplishments. Yang and Yu (1987) have also shown that collectivism and Confucianism are very strong motivators for achievement in many non-Western cultures because of their emphasis on cooperation in the family unit and community. Guided by these cultural values, it is believed that the individual intuitively senses the degree of pressure that differentiates his or her factor of achievement orientation.
Research on the physiological roots of procrastination have been concerned with the role of the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that is responsible for executive brain functions such as impulse control, attention and planning. This is consistent with the notion that procrastination is strongly related to such functions, or a lack thereof. The prefrontal cortex also acts as a filter, decreasing distracting stimuli from other brain regions. Damage or low activation in this area can reduce one's ability to avert diversions, which results in poorer organization, a loss of attention, and increased procrastination. This is similar to the prefrontal lobe's role in ADHD, where it is commonly under-activated.
In a 2014 U.S. study surveying procrastination and impulsiveness in fraternal and identical twin pairs, both traits were found to be "moderately heritable". The two traits were not separable at the genetic level (rgenetic = 1.0), meaning no unique genetic influences of either trait alone was found. The authors confirmed three constructs developed from the evolutionary hypothesis that procrastination arose as a by-product of impulsivity: "(a) Procrastination is heritable, (b) the two traits share considerable genetic variation, and (c) goal-management ability is an important component of this shared variation."
A correlation between procrastination and eveningness was observed where individuals who had later sleeping and waking patterns were more likely to procrastinate. Smartphone addiction is an important factor that interferes with sleep, and it is characterized by compulsive behavior patterns that cause people to malfunction. When smartphone use is suspended, withdrawal reactions may occur, seriously affecting sleep. It has been shown that morningness increases across lifespan and procrastination decreases with age.
Perfectionism is a common cause for procrastination because pursuing unattainable goals (perfection) usually results in failure.Hillary Rettig (2011). The 7 Secrets of the Prolific: The Definitive Guide to Overcoming Procrastination, Perfectionism, and Writer's Block Unrealistic expectations destroy self-esteem and lead to self-repudiation, self-contempt, and widespread unhappiness. To overcome procrastination, it is essential to recognize and accept the power of failure without condemning,James Prochaska, 1995 to stop focusing on faults and flaws and to set goals that are easier to achieve.
Student syndrome is the phenomenon where a student will begin to fully apply themselves to a task only immediately before a deadline. This negates the usefulness of any buffers built into individual task duration estimates. Results from a 2002 study indicate that many students are aware of procrastination and accordingly set binding deadlines long before the date for which a task is due. These self-imposed binding deadlines are correlated with a better performance than without binding deadlines though performance is best for evenly spaced external binding deadlines. Finally, students have difficulties optimally setting self-imposed deadlines, with results suggesting a lack of spacing before the date at which results are due. In one experiment, participation in online exercises was found to be five times higher in the final week before a deadline than in the summed total of the first three weeks for which the exercises were available. Procrastinators end up being the ones doing most of the work in the final week before a deadline. Additionally, students can delay making important decisions such as "I'll get my degree out of the way first then worry about jobs and careers when I finish University".
Other reasons cited on why students procrastinate include fear of failure and success, perfectionist expectations, as well as legitimate activities that may take precedence over school work, such as a job.
Procrastinators have been found to receive worse grades than non-procrastinators. Tice et al. (1997) report that more than one-third of the variation in final exam scores could be attributed to procrastination. The negative association between procrastination and academic performance is recurring and consistent. The students in the study not only received poor academic grades, but they also reported high levels of stress and poor self-health. Howell et al. (2006) found that, though scores on two widely used procrastination scales were not significantly associated with the grade received for an assignment, self-report measures of procrastination on the assessment itself were negatively associated with grade.
In 2005, a study conducted by Angela Chu and Jin Nam Choi and published in The Journal of Social Psychology intended to understand task performance among procrastinators with the definition of procrastination as the absence of self-regulated performance, from the 1977 work of Ellis & Knaus. In their study they identified two types of procrastination: the traditional procrastination which they denote as passive, and active procrastination where the person finds enjoyment of a goal-oriented activity only under pressure. The study calls this active procrastination positive procrastination, as it is a functioning state in a self-handicapping environment. In addition, it was observed that active procrastinators have more realistic perceptions of time and perceive more control over their time than passive procrastinators, which is considered a major differentiator between the two types. Due to this observation, active procrastinators are much more similar to non-procrastinators as they have a better sense of purpose in their time use and possess efficient time-structuring behaviors. But surprisingly, active and passive procrastinators showed similar levels of academic performance. The population of the study was college students and the majority of the sample size were women and Asian in origin. Comparisons with chronic pathological procrastination traits were avoided.
Different findings emerge when observed and self-reported procrastination are compared. Steel et al. constructed their own scales based on Silver and Sabini's "irrational" and "postponement" criteria. They also sought to measure this behavior objectively. During a course, students could complete exam practice computer exercises at their own pace, and during the supervised class time could also complete chapter quizzes. A weighted average of the times at which each chapter quiz was finished formed the measure of observed procrastination, whilst observed irrationality was quantified with the number of practice exercises that were left uncompleted. Researchers found that there was only a moderate correlation between observed and self-reported procrastination (r = 0.35). There was a very strong inverse relationship between the number of exercises completed and the measure of postponement (r = −0.78). Observed procrastination was very strongly negatively correlated with course grade (r = −0.87), as was self-reported procrastination (though less so, r = −0.36). As such, self-reported measures of procrastination, on which the majority of the literature is based, may not be the most appropriate measure to use in all cases. It was also found that procrastination itself may not have contributed significantly to poorer grades. Steel et al. noted that those students who completed all of the practice exercises "tended to perform well on the final exam no matter how much they delayed."
Procrastination is considerably more widespread in students than in the general population, with over 70 percent of students reporting procrastination for assignments at some point. A 2014 panel study from Germany among several thousand university students found that increasing academic procrastination increases the frequency of seven different forms of academic misconduct, i.e., using fraudulent excuses, plagiarism, copying from someone else in exams, using forbidden means in exams, carrying forbidden means into exams, copying parts of homework from others, fabrication or falsification of data and the variety of academic misconduct. This study argues that academic misconduct can be seen as a means to cope with the negative consequences of academic procrastination such as performance impairment.
One form of self-regulation is time management, which does not normally address emotional issues related to procrastination so interventions are often combined with other approaches. Coherence therapy seeks to understand an underlying emotional truth behind procrastination, acceptance therapy focuses on viewing emotional responses as to be expected and transitory. Strength-based approaches aim to foster self-efficacy (an individual's knowledge of and therefore application of their capabilities) by making individuals aware of their strengths.
Behaviors and practices that reduce procrastination:
Making a plan to complete tasks in a rigid schedule format might not work for everyone. There is no hard-and-fast rule to follow such a process if it turns out to be counter-productive. Instead of scheduling, it may be better to execute tasks in a flexible, unstructured schedule which has time slots for only necessary activities.
Piers Steel suggestsThe Procrastination Equation, 2012 that better time management is a key to overcoming procrastination, including being aware of and using one's "power hours" (being a "morning person" or "night owl"). A good approach is to creatively utilize one's internal that are best suited for the most challenging and productive work. Steel states that it is essential to have realistic goals, to tackle one problem at a time and to cherish the "small successes". Brian O'Leary supports that "finding a work-life balance...may actually help us find ways to be more productive", suggesting that dedicating leisure activities as motivation can increase one's efficiency at handling tasks. Procrastination is not a lifelong trait. Those likely to worry can learn to let go, those who procrastinate can find different methods and strategies to help focus and avoid impulses.
In his book Extreme Productivity, Robert Pozen introduces the ‘OHIO principle’, short for ‘only handle it once’. This principle suggests that when a task is encountered, deal with it immediately to avoid procrastination. With the OHIO principle, an encountered task should lead to one of three actions: a) Complete the task. If a task takes just a few minutes, act immediately for completion. b) Schedule the task. If the task requires a longer process, schedule a time for completion. c) Delegate the task. If the task is appropriate for others, convey the task for completion.
After contemplating his own procrastination habits, philosopher John Perry authored an essay entitled "Structured Procrastination", wherein he proposes a "cheat" method as a safer approach for tackling procrastination: using a pyramid scheme to reinforce the unpleasant tasks needed to be completed in a quasi-prioritized order.
With a distant deadline, procrastinators report significantly less stress and physical illness than do non-procrastinators. However, as the deadline approaches, this relationship is reversed. Procrastinators report more stress, more symptoms of physical illness, and more medical visits, to the extent that, overall, procrastinators experience more stress and health problems. This can cause quality of life to decrease significantly along with overall happiness. Procrastination also has the ability to increase perfectionism and neuroticism, while decreasing conscientiousness and optimism.
Procrastination can also lead to insomnia, Alisa Hrustic said in Men's Health that "The procrastinators—people who scored above the median on the survey—were 1.5 to 3 times more likely to have symptoms of insomnia, like severe difficulty falling asleep, than those who scored lower on the test." Insomnia can even add more problems as a severe and negative impact.
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