There's probably something you should be doing right now.

Not necessarily something enormous. Maybe it's replying to an email, sorting out a bill or booking an appointment.

You've thought about it several times. You know it needs doing. You might even have written it on three different to-do lists.

And yet, here we are.

Why do we procrastinate on things we know we need to do?

It turns out the answer is a little more interesting than simply being lazy.

What actually is procrastination?

Procrastination is when we unnecessarily delay doing something, despite expecting that the delay could make things worse.

The important word is unnecessarily.

Choosing to do something tomorrow because you've got more urgent priorities today isn't necessarily procrastination. Neither is taking a proper break when you're exhausted.

Procrastination is more like knowing you should start preparing your tax return, having time to make progress, and deciding to reorganise your kitchen cupboards instead.

The cupboards suddenly seem extremely important.

Why do we put things off?

One influential explanation is that procrastination is partly about managing how we feel.

Researchers Fuschia Sirois and Timothy Pychyl have described procrastination in terms of short-term mood regulation.

Here's the idea.

A task makes you feel something unpleasant. Perhaps boredom, uncertainty, anxiety or frustration.

Avoiding the task makes that feeling disappear, at least temporarily.

So you do something else.

The relief feels good now, even though the task is still waiting for you later.

It's a bit like borrowing comfort from your future self.

Unfortunately, your future self still has to deal with the original task, usually with less time available.

Some tasks are easier to avoid than others

Think about the difference between these two things:

  • Order a pizza.
  • Sort out my finances.

The first has a clear beginning, a fairly obvious process and an immediate reward.

The second could mean almost anything.

Check your bank account? Review your spending? Cancel subscriptions? Find a better mortgage? Work out what you owe?

Even identifying where to begin takes effort.

Research into procrastination has found associations with factors including how unpleasant a task feels, how far away its consequences are and how confident we feel about completing it.

So sometimes the difficulty isn't just doing the task.

It's working out what doing the task actually involves.

Is procrastination the same as laziness?

Not really.

Laziness is an imprecise label, and it doesn't explain much about why someone is avoiding a particular task.

You can be hardworking, ambitious and highly productive in some areas of your life while procrastinating spectacularly in others.

You might spend all day solving difficult problems at work, then avoid making a five-minute phone call for three weeks.

The question worth asking isn't simply, "Why am I so lazy?"

It's, "What's making this particular task difficult to start?"

That question gives you something useful to work with.

What can you do about it?

There's no single technique that eliminates procrastination, but a few approaches are worth trying.

Make the task more specific

"Get healthy" is a goal.

"Put my trainers by the front door" is an action.

The second is much easier to picture yourself doing.

Make the first step smaller

You don't need to finish the whole project today.

You might only need to open the document, find the relevant paperwork or write the first sentence.

Decide when you'll do it

A plan such as "When I finish lunch, I'll open the spreadsheet" is more specific than "I'll get around to it this afternoon".

Research on implementation intentions suggests that linking an action to a particular situation can help people follow through on their intentions.

Make room for the real reason you're avoiding it

Sometimes a task isn't vague. It's frightening, upsetting or genuinely unpleasant.

Breaking it into smaller steps may help, but it won't necessarily resolve the underlying issue.

And that's worth recognising.

Start with the starting bit

If you've got a task that's been sitting on your list for weeks, try this:

Write it down.

Then ask yourself:

What's the smallest practical thing I could do to move this forward?

Not finish it. Not solve it. Just move it forward.

For "Sort out my finances", that might be "Find last month's bank statement".

For "Look for a new job", it might be "Open my CV".

For "Get the house organised", it might be "Clear one kitchen drawer".

It's a modest approach, deliberately.

But when starting is the difficult part, modest can be useful.

A little help getting started

That's the thinking behind Tad.

It's a simple to-do list where you can write down what's on your mind and give each task one tiny next action.

Because knowing what needs doing and knowing where to start aren't always the same thing.

Further reading