Think of that one major thing you’ve been putting off. That yucky phone call, the business plan you promised yourself to write, the difficult conversation or that half-finished course you really want to complete. Now stay with that thought and notice what happens when you bring it to mind. Maybe a tightening in the chest, a knot in the stomach, a frustration spike, or if you are like me, a sudden urge to stack the dishwasher, or literally do anything else.
That feeling is the real story of procrastination. But once we understand that feeling, we can actually do something about it.
It’s rarely just about time management
Like many of my clients, I believed for years that procrastination was a discipline problem, and that if we just found the right system and ways to be motivated, we’d get on with things. Well, I have tried many fancy diaries, funky apps, calendar tricks and life hacks. But only when I understood the research, which tells a very different story, did I begin to move the needle.
Psychologists Fuschia Sirois and Timothy Pychyl, two of the world’s leading procrastination researchers, describe procrastination as a problem of short-term mood repair (yes, that line is worth reading again). As they put it, borrowing a phrase from fellow researchers, “we give in to feel good” (Tice and Bratslavsky, 2000, cited in Sirois and Pychyl, 2013, p. 115).
When a task stirs up uncomfortable emotions like anxiety, self-doubt, boredom or frustration, we avoid the task to escape the feeling. Avoidance gives us instant relief, which quietly keeps the cycle going, while the task (and the dread) grows bigger in the background (Sirois and Pychyl, 2013).
In other words: we don’t put things off because we’re lazy. We put things off because, in that moment, avoiding the task is the fastest way to feel better. Our mind loves the path of least resistance and most of us are experts at suppressing and escaping from negative emotions.
The catch is that the relief never lasts, because somewhere in the background, we know that task is still waiting. A large study of more than 3,500 university students published in JAMA Network Open followed students over nine months and found that higher levels of procrastination were linked to poorer outcomes later on, including more symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress, worse sleep, more physical inactivity and weirdly, even disabling pain in the arms (Johansson et al., 2023).
Procrastination isn’t a harmless quirk. The links in this study were modest, but they showed up across many areas of life, and that’s how the cost quietly adds up.
The surprising way out
If procrastination is driven by difficult emotions, then the way out lies in better emotional skills.
This is where the research gets hopeful. In one well-known study of first-year university students, those who had procrastinated heavily before their first midterm exam, but forgave themselves for it, procrastinated less before the next one (Wohl, Pychyl and Bennett, 2010). This suggests that holding on to bad feelings about our procrastination keeps the avoidance cycle spinning, while self-forgiveness helps us let those feelings go and turn back towards the task.
Building on this, a series of studies, including a randomised controlled trial, found that training people in emotion regulation skills, particularly the ability to tolerate uncomfortable feelings and modify negative emotions, significantly reduced their procrastination (Eckert et al., 2016). The skill wasn’t trying harder. It was learning to stay present with the discomfort long enough to begin. It reminds me of my yoga teacher and her spidey senses. Somehow, at the exact moment I’m holding my breath and thinking about abandoning some crazy pose, her honey-like voice floats over: “notice the discomfort, breathe through it”. Them yogis had it figured out!
This matches what I see in my coaching practice every week. Underneath almost every stuck goal is an emotion that hasn’t been acknowledged and often, an old story about not being capable enough or not being ready enough. When we meet that emotion with awareness and compassion instead of judgement, the task loses its charge. We also do need to work on depleting the charge of those old stories and creating new empowering ones. Then starting becomes possible.
A gentle practice to get unstuck
Here is a practice I use with my coaching clients, adapted for you to try this week. Set aside 15 quiet minutes with a journal.
1. Choose one thing. Think of three things you’ve been wanting to do but keep putting off. Pick the one that feels the easiest to tackle.
2. Get curious, not critical. Ask yourself: When I imagine doing this thing, what emotions come up? Write down whatever arrives, without editing.
3. Look a little deeper. Is there an event from your past that makes this feel unsafe or hard? Often the resistance belongs to an older story, not to the task itself. If this brings up something that feels too big, pause here, breathe and be gentle with yourself. You can decide to stop here for today or continue when you feel steady.
4. Find the feeling in your body. Where does this emotion live? What size, shape or colour is it? Observe it like a kind scientist. Breathe deeply into that place, without judgement, and offer yourself some compassion, the way you would to a dear friend.
5. Move it through. Stand up, shake out your hands and legs, move your body for a minute. Emotions show up in the body, and for many people, movement helps them shift.
6. Soften the story. Ask: How can I put this behind me a little more? That might mean forgiving yourself, forgiving someone else, or simply deciding to ask for help. Remember, research suggests self-forgiveness can help us move past what’s happened and begin again (Wohl, Pychyl and Bennett, 2010).
7. Take three steps. Write down three small steps you can take this week towards the thing you’ve been putting off. Then do just one of them.
Notice the order here: feelings first, action second. That reflects what the research shows about emotions and procrastination, and what I see with my clients.
If you hit something tender
If you tried the practice above and hit something tender, such as an old story, a fear that keeps resurfacing, or a pattern you can’t quite see past, please know that that’s not failure. It’s useful information. And it’s usually the point where a supportive, structured conversation makes all the difference.
This is exactly the work I do with my coaching clients: safely uncovering what’s really behind the stuckness, and building the self-trust to move forward. If that resonates, I’d love to meet you.
You’re warmly invited to book a free discovery call. A relaxed, no-pressure chat to explore what’s keeping you stuck and whether coaching feels right for you.
Because that thing you’ve been putting off? Some part of you is ready. That’s why it keeps coming up.
References
Eckert, M., Ebert, D.D., Lehr, D., Sieland, B. and Berking, M. (2016) ‘Overcome procrastination: Enhancing emotion regulation skills reduce procrastination’, Learning and Individual Differences, 52, pp. 10–18.
Johansson, F., Rozental, A., Edlund, K., Côté, P., Sundberg, T., Onell, C., Rudman, A. and Skillgate, E. (2023) ‘Associations between procrastination and subsequent health outcomes among university students in Sweden’, JAMA Network Open, 6(1), e2249346.
Sirois, F.M. and Pychyl, T.A. (2013) ‘Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood regulation: Consequences for future self’, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), pp. 115–127.
Wohl, M.J.A., Pychyl, T.A. and 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), pp. 803–808.
