Why we put things off

It is Sunday evening. Your report is due on Monday morning, and you have known about it for two weeks. Yet instead of getting down to work, you tidy your desk, reply to old messages and watch 'just one' episode of a series. By the time you finally open the file, it is nearly eleven o'clock. Almost everyone puts things off from time to time, but for some people procrastination becomes a habit that seriously affects their studies, work and health.

For a long time, procrastination was seen as a simple matter of laziness or poor time management. However, many psychologists now argue that it has more to do with emotions than with time. We do not avoid a task because we are lazy, but because it makes us feel something unpleasant: boredom, confusion or fear of doing it badly. Putting it off brings instant relief, and the brain remembers that relief.

There is also a strange gap between our present and future selves. Some studies suggest that when we imagine ourselves years from now, the brain responds almost as if we were thinking about a stranger. As a result, it feels perfectly reasonable to leave the hard work to that person. The problem, of course, is that the future eventually arrives, and the stranger turns out to be us.

Admittedly, a little pressure can be useful. Some people genuinely do their best work at the last minute, and a few hours of intense focus can produce surprisingly good results. Even so, for chronic procrastinators the habit takes its toll. Research has linked it to higher stress, poorer sleep and lower grades, and the guilt of unfinished tasks rarely goes away on its own.

So what actually helps? One effective strategy is to make the first step ridiculously small: instead of 'write the report', the goal becomes 'open the file and write one sentence'. Once we have started, carrying on is usually far easier than we expected. Another is to be kinder to ourselves. In one well-known study, students who forgave themselves for putting off revision before an exam procrastinated less before the next one. Blaming ourselves, by contrast, only makes the task feel heavier.

Ultimately, procrastination is less about managing our calendars than about managing our feelings. Knowing this will not make a boring task exciting. Still, it might help us stop waiting for the 'right mood', bite the bullet and simply begin.