Why we put things off (and how to stop)

There is a phone call you have been putting off for weeks. An email you will “answer tomorrow”. A tax form, a quote to request, a wardrobe to clear out. Meanwhile you have tidied your desk, answered messages that could have waited and learned everything about the migration of eels.

Putting things off is not a character flaw, and it is almost never laziness. Researchers who study procrastination describe it as a problem of managing emotions rather than time: we avoid the task because it makes us uncomfortable, and the immediate relief of avoiding it beats the future benefit of having done it. Every time we put it off, the discomfort grows. That is why, sooner or later, it turns into a ghost.

Why we put things off

In projects we say that a well-defined problem is half solved. The same goes here: before looking for a technique, it helps to understand what kind of delay it is.

• Fear of getting it wrong. As long as I don’t do it, I can’t do it badly. The task stays there, untouched and threatening.
• Perfectionism. If I can’t do it brilliantly, I’d rather not start. It is fear of failure in its Sunday best.
• A task too big or too vague. “Sort out my finances” can’t be done. “Download September’s bank statement” can.
• No reason that feels like mine. The task makes sense for someone else, or its reason is so far away I can’t see it.
• Everything feels urgent. So I do the small urgent things, which feel satisfying, and leave the important ones, which never expire until it is too late.

How to stop (one task at a time)

Find the next physical action

Not “prepare the presentation”, but “open last year’s file and copy the outline”. Something you do with your hands, in a few minutes. It is the same principle PMs use to break a project into tasks: the brain gets going far more willingly from a small, clear step.

If it takes two minutes, do it now

David Allen’s rule is simple: if a task takes less than two minutes, doing it costs less than remembering it. Answer that email, book that appointment, sign that form.

Give it time, not a finish line

Instead of “I’ll finish the report”, try “I’ll work on it for 25 minutes”. A timer, your phone in another room, a break at the end. It is the Pomodoro technique: it lowers the stakes, because you don’t have to finish, you only have to start. And once you have started, you often keep going.

Separate the important from the urgent

The Eisenhower matrix splits your to-dos into four: important and urgent (now), important but not urgent (plan it), urgent but not important (delegate or minimise), neither (drop it). Procrastination lives in the second box: the important things that never expire. Put them in your diary like an appointment.

When instead everything seems due today, there is a trick Angelita uses in the book: take the hours out of the count and think in a generic unit of time. You break the barrier of urgency and start seeing what really matters again.

Find a timekeeper

Deadlines we set ourselves are easy to move. Shared ones are not. Tell someone what you will do and by when; work next to someone else, even in silence; commit to an external date. In projects, someone keeps time for everyone: in life, we can ask a friend.

Forgive yesterday’s delay

It sounds counter-intuitive, but it works: a study by Wohl, Pychyl and Bennett (2010) found that students who had forgiven themselves for putting off revision for their first exam procrastinated less before the next one. Guilt feeds discomfort, and discomfort feeds delay. Starting again from today is more useful than scolding yourself for yesterday.

When putting it off is the right choice

Not every delay is procrastination. Sometimes waiting is a decision: information is missing, the situation needs to mature, or the thing simply isn’t needed. The difference is that a decision is taken, and comes with a date when you will reconsider it. Procrastination, on the other hand, just happens.