Procrastination is a bad habit that negatively affects productivity and quality of life. Even simple tasks can be taken as an insurmountable barrier. Procrastination is a pattern of behavior with a voluntary postponement of planned actions. A procrastinator may put things off even though they realize the negative consequences of their decisions. About 20% of adult men and women have chronic procrastination. Let’s discover more about procrastination, its stages, reasons, and tips on how to stop procrastination!

Procrastination vs. Laziness: What’s the Difference?

The main difference between procrastination and laziness is that procrastinators have negative feelings from failing to perform planned tasks. Laziness is characterized by indifference to the consequences of inaction or delay in performing planned tasks.

Procrastinators can become people who put getting pleasure at the top of their list of priorities. In this regard, they tend to perform important tasks while shirking professional or household chores. Apart from that, procrastinators can be people who lack self-control and tend to devalue rewards for accomplishing tasks.

Procrastination and ADHD

Procrastination isn’t always a sign of ADHD, people without the disorder are also prone to procrastination, but the high prevalence of procrastination among people with ADHD is related to neurological deficits in skills such as organization, prioritization, working memory, impulse control, and hyperfocus (a state of deep concentration that allows people with ADHD to immerse themselves in a task and ignore distractions).

These symptoms of cognitive dysfunction, combined with the problem of managing negative emotions, make it difficult for adults with ADHD to get started, stay focused, and perform tasks that seem boring, difficult, or anxiety-provoking.

Instead, people with ADHD tend to continually put off responsible duties in favor of more enjoyable activities, often resulting in rushed attempts to meet last-minute deadlines or forgetting about responsibilities altogether. These things don’t always happen consciously.

Adults with ADHD often fall into the procrastination trap when faced with mental barriers to completing basic tasks. By examining what makes procrastination efforts more achievable despite lower priorities, you can develop strategies to help focus on important tasks again and learn how to stop procrastinating with ADHD.

What Does a Procrastination Cycle Look Like?

The procrastination cycle is a repeating loop that a lot of people experience when they delay tasks. There are 5 stages of procrastination in this cycle. Don’t hesitate to look them through to understand how to stop being a procrastinator and start working steadily.

1. Task avoidance

People who procrastinate are often scared of judgement and making mistakes. They are anxious of what others may think of them and their results, and so procrastinators put it off in hope to avoid getting criticized.

Procrastination is often connected with perfectionism. Being a perfectionist, you put enormous pressure on yourself to be perfect and, thus, may have unrealistic expectations. Perfectionism can lead to worries about how well you can do a task, which leads to complete inaction.

2. Short-term relief

Short-term relief often comes from avoiding boring or stressful tasks, providing a temporary sense of comfort. Procrastinators usually achieve this feeling by engaging in less demanding activities — browsing social media, watching TV, or organizing non-binding tasks. This avoidance relieves anxiety in the moment but leads to heightened stress later as deadlines loom and responsibilities pile up. 
 

3. Increased stress and anxiety

As a rule, procrastinators are stressed out because they treat failure as a disaster, and that's why adrenaline releases, causing problems like panic attacks.  

Procrastinators often fall into a vicious cycle: they experience stress over pending tasks and look for excuses to justify their delay. When the deadline comes, the stress level rises and compounds the procrastinator's anxiety. This tension can lead to burnout or a nervous breakdown, making the cycle difficult to escape. 

4. Crisis point 

At this stage, a person procrastinates putting off a problem they have created. In the meantime, the deadline is approaching, and there is a catastrophic lack of time, creating a real danger. The feeling of anxiety at this stage can disappear, replaced by doom. 

However, some creative people feel a burst of energy. Many procrastinators reach a critical line, stop doubting their abilities, they get confident and excited. It might be good, but working in such conditions can soon lead to severe stress and burnout.

5. Regret and shame

The deadline comes, a person has failed to succeed on the issue of how to stop laziness and procrastination, is under wild stress, and with eyes red from lack of sleep they still hand over the task. At the same time, a procrastinator doesn’t think about the quality of their work. As a result, the task is closed just to squeeze into the deadline, a negative feedback is likely to come, spoiling the mood, self-esteem, and overall well-being.

10 Tips on How to Stop From Procrastinating and Boost Productivity

How to stop procrastinating on homework and other important things? We’re fascinated by people who always manage to do everything well and on time, and are engaged in some interesting active hobbies, too. How do they achieve such a high level of self-discipline and motivation? Are they better than us?

These people don’t have superpowers. More likely, they’ve defeated the impulses that encourage them to procrastinate. You can start turning into a superhero like them right now. In this section, let’s discover some tips on how to avoid procrastination.
 

1. Use time management techniques

One of the most popular techniques to fight procrastination and how to stop it is Pomodoro. Make a list of tasks that need to be done soon (e.g. a week). From the list of active tasks, select the ones you want to do today. Add them to your to do list for the day. Rank the tasks for the day from highest to lowest priority. Set a timer for 25 minutes and start working. After 25 minutes of work, take a 5-10 minute break. After 4 ‘tomatoes’, take a long 15-20 minute break. Repeat until you have completed all the tasks on your list for the day. Mark each ‘tomato’ spent on a task with a cross next to it. Cross out the closed tasks.

The Eisenhower Matrix is also one of the top-rated time management techniques that helps you prioritize based on two key criteria: importance and urgency. The basic idea is to identify which tasks are really important for achieving long-term goals and focus on them while minimizing time on less important or urgent tasks. The matrix divides all tasks into four quadrants:

• Important and urgent (Quadrant 1).
• Important but not urgent (Quadrant 2).
• Unimportant but urgent (Quadrant 3).
• Unimportant and not urgent (Quadrant 4).

Creating an Eisenhower Matrix is a simple process. You need to draw a square and divide it into four parts as described above. Then make a list of tasks that need to be completed. Finally, each task should be placed in the appropriate quadrant.

• Quadrant 1. It's a place for urgent and important tasks that suddenly arise due to force majeure or crisis. Their distinctive feature is serious consequences due to disruption. You'll have cases always appearing in this square, it's inevitable. Hard work in emergency mode leads to chronic stress and burnout. If the number of 'urgent tasks' doesn't decrease, try to eliminate their source.
• Quadrant 2. These are important things that you don't have to tackle at once, you can do them during the day. The main thing is not to forget, so a new urgent case doesn't appear. Try to spend most of your time in this square. Thus, you will feel satisfaction from your work and life and will not burn out. Tasks from this square are what make your future success.
• Quadrant 3. This includes urgent tasks that someone else can do instead of you. For example, colleagues, friends, or relatives. Routines that take up time, exhaust you, and prevent you from doing 'real work' can be found here. The third square is insidious, it can easily be confused with the first square. You can enjoy the ticks against the closed trifling cases and get into the illusion of productivity, but at the same time feel that you are just fussing and doing the wrong thing. The result is chronic dissatisfaction and burnout. It's best to automate or delegate such tasks as much as possible.
• Quadrant 4. These are tasks that have no value or deadlines and aren't worth paying attention to, e.g., scrolling through social media. The more you are busy with things from the fourth square, the deeper you sink into the 'black hole' and there's no time for the important things. Go to the fourth quadrant last, when the rest is done. It's a good idea to monitor how long you are in the 'black hole' and limit yourself a bit. 

The Eisenhower Matrix is just one of the time management tools to help beat procrastination.

2. Stick to the 2-minute rule

The two-minute rule is one of the techniques created by David Allen that can help you avoid procrastination. Its essence is simple: if doing something will take you less than two minutes, you should do it at the moment you first think about it. 
 

e.g. If you come home on a rainy day and you have wet shoes, you should wipe them off right away instead of putting this task off for later. 

It actually takes much more time, energy, and other resources to create a reminder, remember later, or simply leave that two-minute undone task in the back of your mind than it does to do it here and now. 

3. Practice self-discipline

Self-discipline is the ability to sacrifice short-term pleasure for long-term gain. 
 

e.g. Not sleeping in, but going for a jog; not watching one more TV show episode, but taking an online Spanish lesson.

Self-discipline encourages you to do quality work, even when you’re exhausted; it helps you stay on track and progress when most people would put things off again and again.

4. Remove all things that distract you

It’s important to organize your place and work in a pleasant environment that allows you to concentrate. Apart from that, you should know what distracts you from your work and put away anything you don't need. 

Do you really need all those tabs open on your computer screen? Does every thing on your table serve your good at the moment? Probably not. Of course, if you get it all out of sight, it's not a guarantee that you won't start getting distracted, playing games, etc. But the chance will be greatly reduced.

5. Break down large tasks

Instead of trying to complete a large task at one time, break it down into small tasks that can be completed one at a time.  It will allow you to increase your productivity and focus your attention on the tasks that need to be done. Setting deadlines for each step can help you avoid putting it off until tomorrow. It’s important to set realistic terms that match your abilities. This common strategy will help you to give up procrastination habits.

6. Reward yourself for small wins

By evaluating your progress, you’re sure to find something to be proud of. It can be any reward you want: ice cream or concert tickets will lift your spirits and motivate you to do the hard work. By rewarding yourself for success, you can raise your self-esteem and self-efficacy.

7. Practice meditation and relaxation techniques

Meditation and relaxation techniques can help you get rid of racing thoughts and sharpen your concentration, allowing you to stay more focused on the task at hand. Meditation enforces clear thinking. Ideas that are in line with your real needs and interests come easily after the mind gets clear. 

8. Drum up support

You aren’t alone in this journey. Form a support team, reach out to a family member or people in your community, and ask for their help on how to stop procrastinating and being lazy. Some people may skip this step because they don't want to admit their problem. But the truth is that your loved ones will support you even more if you recognize your imperfections. Don't be afraid to talk about your vulnerability. Find the courage to ask for help. Then allow others to support you when you’re beating procrastination.

9. Contact a specialist

Is there a treatment for procrastination? Procrastination can be a consequence of a more serious psychological problem — depression or anxiety. If you think you’re procrastinating too much, it’s having a detrimental effect on your life and you’ve tried to cope and failed — see a specialist. If this procrastination habit is destroying your career or personal life, a specialist can help you dig deep into the problem's origins and find a solution. 

10. Find out your strategy

You can try all the tips on how to stop being lazy and procrastinating listed in this article or come up with your own. Everyone can develop their personal strategy. The main thing is to understand which methods help you to stop procrastinating and give up those that are ineffective for you. 

Can We Make Procrastination Productive?

Some psychologists believe that sometimes procrastination gives you time to think about what you need to work on and how to do it best. In such cases, procrastination can be productive. Completing tasks quickly and impulsively may not always be helpful. 

e.g. When doing small household chores, a person may think about a complex project and its implementation.

If people lack self-discipline and self-control, they find it difficult to start work and complete it at the same pace. They tend to put off tasks and to-do's because they work best ‘under pressure’ of approaching deadlines.

The six different styles of procrastination are based on three different types of behavior. The first two focus on attention to detail, the second two focus on the future, and the last two focus on relationships with others. The behavioral patterns of procrastination are:

1. Perfectionist. Doesn't want to start or finish a task because they think they won't do it perfectly.
2. Dreamer. Doesn't pay enough attention to detail, so they may have all sorts of great ideas about what they want to do, but they hate to deal with the minutiae.
3. Anxious. Anxious people have an excessive need for security, which makes them afraid of risk. They fear change, so they avoid completing projects not to leave their comfort zone.
4. Crisis maker. These people convince themselves that they do tasks better under pressure, so they delay the task until the last moment, but are highly anxious and exhausted.
5. Challenger. This kind of people disregards conventional rules, focusing on their schedule that no one else can predict or control.
6. Prone to overdoing things. Experiences difficulty when choices, prioritization, or decisions need to be made. May do more for others without having time to complete their tasks. Procrastinators of this type are the first candidates for ‘burnout.’

A person may have more than one behavioral pattern of procrastination at the same time. To develop a plan of action to transform unproductive procrastination into a productive one, you should analyze the factors that contribute to the aggravation of unproductive procrastination.

Closing Thoughts on How to Stop Chronic Procrastination

Procrastination is a common problem that can be solved if you know its causes and find effective methods to fight it. You can do that by breaking large tasks into smaller ones, setting realistic terms, taking breaks, and thinking positively. Remember that procrastination can have consequences not only for productivity but also for mental health. 

So, if you notice that you are constantly putting off tasks, don't hesitate to address the problem. Look for ways that work specifically for you and try to understand the causes of your procrastination. If you find it difficult to do this on your own, you should seek help from a qualified professional. Over time, you’ll be able to develop your time management and productivity skills, allowing you to succeed in overcoming procrastination without too much effort and stress.
 

FAQs on how to Stop Procrastinating

How is procrastination different from laziness?

When people are lazy, they recover their desire to achieve goals and take pleasure from doing nothing. And most importantly, they don’t criticize themselves for it. Procrastination is accompanied by a too-intense internal process with hard self-judgment for not doing anything, self-defeating. This process is exhausting and it doesn't bring recovery. The person is fatigued in the end.

Is procrastination a disease?

Procrastination doesn’t belong to any of the types of mental disorders included in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10). In the ICD-11 revision, procrastination is mentioned as one of the manifestations of generalized anxiety disorder (code — 6B00), which is included in section ‘06. Mental, behavioral, or neuropsychiatric disorders’.

How to stop procrastinating right now?

One of the key methods to help get rid of procrastination is to correct your daily routine. Practice positive thinking (instead of ‘it's too hard’, ‘I've never done it’ or ‘I don't have time’ — ‘I'll approach it from a different angle’, ‘It's a chance to try something new’, ‘Tomorrow I'll definitely have some leisure time’).

In many cases, you can fight procrastination with the help of a reward system (doing something nice to yourself after another episode of overcoming laziness). If your first attempts to overcome procrastination have failed, you should be persistent and continue with your plan of action.

Why do we put things off?

A pattern of behavior that is dominated by descriptions of one's feelings, thoughts, and actions in the future is called affective forecasting. Procrastinators who feel guilty about another unfinished task use affective forecasting to try to get rid of unpleasant feelings by cheering themselves up with unrealistic forecasts. When people are confident in completing future tasks, they avoid immediate negative feelings but trigger the procrastination cycle.

References

1. Academic Support at Johns Hopkins University. (n.d.). Overcoming procrastination. https://academicsupport.jhu.edu/resources/study-aids/overcoming-procrastination/
2. Cherry, K. (2020, May 14). Procrastination in the digital age. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/procrastination-digital-age
3. IE University. (n.d.). Procrastination: Psychology, effects, causes, and strategies. Center for Health, Well-Being, and Happiness. https://www.ie.edu/center-for-health-and-well-being/blog/procrastination-psychology-effects-causes-strategies/
4. National Center for Biotechnology Information. (2020). Procrastination and its cognitive implications. PMC. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7016643/
5. Schwartz, K. (2019, March 25). Why you procrastinate (it has nothing to do with self-control). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.html

6. University of Melbourne. (n.d.). Procrastination. https://services.unimelb.edu.au/counsel/resources/study-related-issues/procrastination