Procrastination: "I know what I should do, I want to do it, and yet somehow I just forget or get too overwhelmed..."
- Joanna Szczeskiewicz
- 6 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Imagine a man named Alex. Alex is intelligent, capable, and currently staring at a pile of unopened mail on his kitchen counter. Somewhere in that stack is a parking ticket. Alex knows it’s there. He knows opening it will likely take three minutes. He knows dealing with it might take less than an hour. Yet, for the last three weeks, Alex has walked past that pile as if it were radioactive. Instead of opening the envelope, he has reorganized his spice rack, researched the history of the Peloponnesian War, and watched two entire seasons of The Office. Alex doesn’t even know why he’s not dealing with the ticket, but he blames himself deeply for not having handled the issue. He calls himself lazy, irresponsible, and wonders if something is fundamentally wrong with him.
But Alex isn’t lazy. If you asked him to help you move a couch, he’d be there in ten minutes. Laziness is disinterest, the person just doesn’t care. Alex cares deeply—too deeply, in fact. He is paralyzed. This is the central paradox of procrastination: it looks like inaction, but internally, it is a fever state of emotional activity.
Procrastination is not a time management problem; it is an emotion regulation problem. We don't avoid tasks because we are bad at scheduling; we avoid them because they make us feel bad and often, we don’t even know why.
Why We Get Stuck
The diagram below shows a procrastination loop. We will trace it Alex, Maya, Elias, and Julianne as our guides.
1. Attention on Outstanding Task
It all begins when attention is drawn to an outstanding task. Alex’s pile of mail is a constant reminder. Maya, a newly hired project manager, keeps seeing her unfinished presentation in her mind’s eye. Julianne’s lease renewal sits on her desk, untouched. Elias’s tax documents are buried under a mountain of “important” papers. The task registers on their internal radar, but instead of action, it triggers something else.
2. Uncomfortable Reaction
Those who procrastinate experience a physiological response to the tasks they’ve been postponing. Alex feels a tightening in his stomach every time he sees the envelope. Maya’s heart races when she thinks about her slides. Julianne feels a wave of panic at the sight of legal paperwork. Elias gets a subtle “Yuk” feeling, a sense of dread that makes him want to escape.
This is the fight-flight-freeze response activating, perceiving the task as a threat. Alex’s flight manifests as an urgent urge to escape into distraction—he reorganizes his spice rack. Maya freezes, staring blankly at her laptop, unable to start. Julianne fights, resenting the paperwork and feeling anger at her situation. Elias justifies his avoidance by telling himself he needs to find one more receipt before he can begin working on his taxes.
3. Schemas: The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Schemas are deeply held cognitive frameworks that organize how we perceive, interpret, and interact with the world. Alex’s discomfort activates his schema: “I’m irresponsible.” Maya’s schema whispers, “I’m not good enough.” Julianne’s schema screams, “Legal paperwork equals pain.” Elias’s insists, “If it’s not perfect, it’s not worth doing.” These painful thoughts feed the emotional discomfort, making the task feel even more overwhelming.
4. Roots in Life Experience
These schemas and reactive patterns are rooted in personal history. Julianne, for example, experienced abuse prior to and ridicule during her divorce. Now, even mundane tasks like signing a lease renewal trigger a trauma response. Her brain has coded “legal paperwork” as a threat. Alex remembers being scolded for missing deadlines as a child, so every unopened letter feels like a test he’s doomed to fail. Maya’s perfectionism was shaped by years of academic pressure. Elias’s fear comes from growing up in a household where mistakes were not tolerated.
5. Worry and Rumination
Once we feel discomfort and our schemas activate, our minds tend to enter a cycle of worry and rumination. Alex worries about what’s in the letter, projecting negative outcomes into the future: “What if I lose my driver's license?” Maya obsesses over font choices, believing a single mistake will doom her presentation. Julianne ruminates on past failures, blaming herself for not being stronger. Elias spends hours organizing his emails, convinced that productivity in tangential tasks is progress. They experience thought-action fusion, confusing intense worrying about the task for actually working on it. By the time they need to start, they are physically and emotionally exhausted.
6. Disengagement and Distraction
The escalating discomfort and mental exhaustion inevitably lead to disengagement. Alex scrolls through social media, Maya binge-watches TV, Julianne cleans her apartment, Elias obsessively reorganizes his files. These distractions offer temporary relief, drowning out the worry. But the paradox is clear: they disengage from the task but not from the underlying worry, leading to increased helplessness. The brain feels “worked,” but no progress is made. It's just a lot of noise.
7. Justifications
Once disengaged, the mind gets busy creating justifications. Alex tells himself, “I’ll deal with this tomorrow.” Maya insists she needs to research more before starting. Julianne claims she’s too busy. Elias creates an elaborate chain of prerequisites: “I can’t file my taxes until I find that receipt, and I can’t find that receipt until I organize my emails, and I can’t organize my emails until I buy a new hard drive.” These logical-sounding excuses preserve self-esteem but compound pressures.
8. Consequences
We cannot escape the consequences of having many outstanding tasks. Alex’s anxiety mounts as the unopened letter sits there. Maya’s deadline looms, forcing her to pull an all-nighter. Julianne’s lease renewal becomes urgent, triggering panic. Elias faces late fees and mounting stress. If you postpone things until the last moment, you create an even stronger association between stress and the tasks you procrastinate about.
9. Conclusions and the Feedback Loop
In the end, we often reach discouraging conclusions about ourselves. Alex thinks, “I can’t even rely on myself.” Maya believes, “I’m just a failure.” Julianne feels, “I’ll never be free from my past.” Elias concludes, “I’m hopeless.” These negative beliefs loop back into our schemas, amplifying emotional reactions to future tasks and deepening the discomfort—ultimately perpetuating the cycle of procrastination.
The Way Out
How do we break a cycle that is biological, emotional, and historical? The key is to address the emotion regulation problem directly.
Expect Discomfort
Approaching tasks you’ve been avoiding is akin to exposure therapy for anxiety. The task is the “spider.” We don’t try to conquer it all at once; we titrate our engagement. Alex opens the envelope but does not yet read the letter. He will return to it later. Maya writes the header of her presentation, then takes a break. Julianne reads the first paragraph of her lease renewal, then steps away. Elias enters the information he has for his taxes, then pauses. This method proves to your amygdala that you can safely approach the task, touch it, and then retreat without catastrophe. You can engage and disengage at will.
Check the Facts
When the “Yuk” hits, your brain may be distorting reality. Alex asks himself, “Is this actual danger, or just a memory being triggered?” Maya considers, “What’s the worst-case scenario if I work on my slides for an hour?” Julianne reminds herself, “The present task isn’t directly harmful. It has nothing to do with my ex.” Elias challenges his excuses, asking, “How likely is it that everything will go wrong?”.
Target Worry and Rumination:
When your mind enters the spin cycle of worry and rumination, use the APPLE technique:
Accept: Acknowledge that the worry or ruminative thoughts are present. Alex observes his anxiety without fighting it.
Perspective: Remind yourself that thoughts are just thoughts, not facts. Maya tells herself, “My worries aren’t necessarily true and worrying is different from doing.”
Problem Solve: Ask if there is an immediate, concrete action you can take. Julianne decides to sign the lease, even if it feels uncomfortable.
Let Go: Allow the thought to pass without engaging with it. Elias lets go of his perfectionism, focusing on progress.
Engage Effectively: Redirect your attention to what is physically in front of you, focusing on the present moment or the small task you can do.
Disrupt the Distraction
Scrolling, over-planning, or even reading blog posts about procrastination are often just emotional safety behaviors - actions that we engage in to temporarily reduce discomfort but actually reinforce our avoidance in the long term. So, Alex leaves the letter on the coffee table while watching TV, proving he’s in control. No need to distract. Maya does a few minutes of work before choosing another activity. Julianne chooses to disengage, rather than being forced to flee. Elias challenges his justifications, asking, “Will I really feel more motivated tomorrow?”
Compassionate Course Correction
When you find yourself back in the loop, resist the urge for harsh self-blame. Alex gently guides himself back, saying, “I just spent some time off-track. That happened. What’s the smallest step I can take right now?” Maya acknowledges her difficulties, Julianne recognizes dissociation, Elias allows room for potential imperfection. This approach reduces pain and fosters resilience. You are maintaining accountability without linking the task with harsh emotions.
In Conclusion
Those who procrastinate tend to feel overwhelmed, as if they are juggling multiple fragile balls above their heads. The Fight-Flight-Freeze response makes us believe that if we drop one for a moment, all the other balls will crash down. The pressure is unbearable, so we become paralyzed, unable to even start.
Let’s change that image. Instead of precarious balls in the air, let’s think of our to-do lists as books on a shelf. You can take a book down, read two pages, and put it back. The book does not explode. It does not disappear. It sits there, waiting for you to return. The library will not fall on your head. This analogy helps us understand that we can engage with tasks in small, manageable doses, and that temporary disengagement is not catastrophic. This is important as life is pretty much a conveyor belt of never ending tasks.
Deadlines are stressful, but they are also effective. The panic of a due date eventually forces your hand—you file the taxes, you submit the paper. The true tragedy of procrastination lies in the things that have no deadlines. Calling your grandmother. Getting back in shape. Learning a language. Leaving a bad relationship. No one will fine you if you don't do these things. No police will come to your door to arrest you for neglecting your dreams. But if you procrastinate on them, you become a spectator in your own life [1]. You watch the years go by, intending to participate, planning to start "once things settle down," but never actually starting anything.
The idea of being spectators in our own lives comes from a highly influential talk by Tim Urban: Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator that is still available on YouTube.
You can find more information about what stalls us at implementation in this post, while extensive details on the APPLE technique for worry are provided here.