The Writing Center: Procrastination

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Calendar
Libraries
Maps
Departments
ConnectCarolina
Search
The Writing Center
Home
Make/Cancel an Appointment
Submit a Draft Online
Faculty Resources
Handouts
ESL
About
FAQs
Home Handouts Procrastination

Search this
Search
Procrastination
The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.
Mary Heaton Vorse
WHAT THIS HANDOUT IS ABOUT
This handout will help you understand why you procrastinate and offer strategies and to
combat this common writers ailment.
INTRODUCTION
Everyone procrastinates. We put things off because we dont want to do them, or because
we have too many other things on our plates. Putting things offbig or smallis part of
being human. If you are reading this handout, however, it is likely that your procrastination
is troubling you. You suspect that you could be a much better writer if only you didnt put off
writing projects until the last minute. You find that just when you have really gotten going
on a paper, its time to turn it in; so, you never really have time to revise or proofread
carefully. You love the rush of adrenalin you get when you finish a paper ten minutes before
its due, but you (and your body) are getting tired of pulling all-nighters. You feel okay
about procrastinating while in college, but you worry that this habit will follow you into your
working life.
You can tell whether or not you need to do something about your procrastination by
examining its consequences. Procrastination can have external consequences (you get a
zero on the paper because you never turned it in) or internal consequences (you feel
anxious much of the time, even when you are doing something that you enjoy). If you put
off washing the dishes, but the dishes dont bother you, who cares? When your
procrastination leaves you feeling discouraged and overburdened, however, it is time to take
action.
Is there hope?
If you think you are a hopeless procrastinator, take heart! No one is beyond help. The fact
that you procrastinate does not mean that you are inherently lazy or inefficient. Your
procrastination is not an untamable beast. It is a habit that has some specific origin, and it
is a habit that you can overcome. This handout will help you begin to understand why you
procrastinate and give you some strategies for turning things around. For most
procrastinators, however, there are no quick fixes. You arent going to wake up tomorrow
and never procrastinate again. But you might wake up tomorrow and do one or two simple
things that will help you finish that draft a little earlier or with less stress.
You may not be surprised to learn that procrastinators tend to be self-critical. So, as you
consider your procrastination and struggle to develop different work habits, try to be gentle
with yourself. Punishing yourself every time you realize you have put something off wont
help you change. Rewarding yourself when you make progress will.
If you dont care why you procrastinateyou just want to know what to do about itthen
you might as well skip the next section of this handout and go right to the section labeled
What to do about it. If you skip to the strategies, however, you may only end up more
frustrated. Taking the time to learn about why you procrastinate may help you avoid the
cycle whereby you swear up and down that you will never procrastinate again, only to find
that the next time you have a paper due, you are up until 3 a.m. trying to complete the first
(and only) draftwithout knowing why or how you got there.
WHY WE DO IT
In order to stop putting off your writing assignments, it is important to understand why you
tend to do so in the first place. Some of the reasons that people procrastinate include the
following:
Because we are afraid.
Fear of failure: If you are scared that a particular piece of writing isnt going to turn
out well, then you may avoid working on it in order to avoid feeling the fear.
Fear of success: Some procrastinators (the author of this handout included) fear
that if they start working at their full capacity, they will turn into workaholics. Since we
procrastinate compulsively, we assume that we will also write compulsively; we envision
ourselves locked in a library carrel, hunched over the computer, barely eating and
sleeping and never seeing friends or going out. The procrastinator who fears success may
also assume that if they work too hard, they will become mean and cold to the people
around them, thus losing their capacity to be friendly and to have fun. Finally, this type
of procrastinator may think that if they stop procrastinating, then they will start writing
better, which will increase other peoples expectations, thus ultimately increasing the
amount of pressure they experience.
Fear of losing autonomy: Some people delay writing projects as a way of

maintaining their independence. When they receive a writing assignment, they
procrastinate as a way of saying, You cant make me do this. I am my own person.
Procrastinating helps them feel more in control of situations (such as college) in which
they believe that other people have authority.
Fear of being alone: Other writers procrastinate because they want to feel
constantly connected to other people. For instance, you may procrastinate until you are
in such a bind that someone has to come and rescue you. Procrastination therefore
ensures that other people will be involved in your life. You may also put off writing
because you dont want to be alone, and writing is oftentimes a solitary activity. In its
worst form, procrastination itself can become a companion, constantly reminding you of
all that you have to do.
Fear of attachment: Rather than fearing separation, some people procrastinate in

order to create a barrier between themselves and others. They may delay in order to
create chaos in their lives, believing that the chaos will keep other people away.
Whether these fears appear in our conscious or subconscious minds, they paralyze us and
keep us from taking action, until discomfort and anxiety overwhelms us and forces us to
either a) get the piece of writing done or b) give up. (The preceding is a summary of
Chapters 2-4 of Jane B. Burka and Lenora M. Yuens Procrastination: Why You Do It, What
to Do About It.)
Because we expect ourselves to be perfect.

Procrastination and perfectionism often go hand in hand. Perfectionists tend to procrastinate
because they expect so much of themselves, and they are scared about whether or not they
can meet those high standards. Perfectionists sometimes think that it is better to give a
half-hearted effort and maintain the belief that they could have written a great paper, than
to give a full effort and risk writing a mediocre paper. Procrastinating guarantees failure, but
it helps perfectionists maintain their belief that they could have excelled if they had tried
harder. Another pitfall for perfectionists is that they tend to ignore progress toward a goal.
As long as the writing project is incomplete, they feel as though they arent getting
anywhere, rather than recognizing that each paragraph moves them closer to a finished
product.
Because we dont like our writing.

You may procrastinate on writing because you dont like to re-read what you have written;
you hate writing a first draft and then being forced to evaluate it, in all its imperfection. By
procrastinating, you ensure that you dont have time to read over your work, thus avoiding
that uncomfortable moment.
Because were too busy.

Practical concerns: jobs, other classes, etc.
Because it works.
Unfortunately, procrastination helps reinforce itself. When we avoid doing something we
dread (like writing) by doing something we enjoy (such as watching TV, hanging out with
friends, etc.), we escape the dreaded task. Given such a choice, its no wonder that many of
us choose to procrastinate. When we write a paper at the last minute and still manage to
get a good grade, we feel all the more compelled to procrastinate next time around.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
Now that you know a little bit about why you may have procrastinated in the past, lets
explore some of the strategies you might use to combat your procrastination tendencies,
now and in the future. Experiment with whichever of these strategies appeals to you; if you
try something and it doesnt work, try something else! Be patient; improvement will come
with practice.
Take an inventory.
Figuring out exactly when and how you procrastinate can help you stop the behavior. It can
be difficult to tell when you are procrastinating. Think about the clues that tell you thats
what youre doing: for example, a nagging voice in your head, a visual image of what you
are avoiding or the consequences of not doing it, physical ailments (stomach tightness,
headaches, muscle tension), inability to concentrate, inability to enjoy what you are doing.
How do you procrastinate?
Try to ignore the task, hoping against hope that it will go away?
Over- or under-estimate the degree of difficulty that the task involves?
Minimize the impact that your performance now may have on your future?
Substitute something important for something really important? (For example,

cleaning instead of writing your paper.)
Let a short break become a long one, or an evening in which you do no work at all?
(For example, claiming that you are going to watch TV for hour, then watching it all
night.)
Focus on one part of the task, at the expense of the rest? (For example, keep
working on the introduction, while putting off writing the body and conclusion).
Spend too much time researching or choosing a topic

Once you better understand how you procrastinate, you will be better able to catch yourself
doing it. Too often, we dont even realize that we are procrastinatinguntil its too late.
Create a productive environment.

If you have made the decision to stop delaying on a particular writing project, it is critical
that you find a place to work where you have at least half a chance of actually getting some
writing done. Your dorm room may not be the place where you are most productive. Ditto
the computer lab. If you have a laptop computer, try going someplace where you cant
connect to the Internet (e-mail and the Web are the bane of the procrastinators existence
as you probably already know). If you are a procrastinator, then chances are you are
already pretty exasperated; dont risk frustrating yourself even more by trying to write in an
environment that doesnt meet your needs.
[CAUTION: The most skilled procrastinators will be tempted to take this suggestion too far,
spending an inordinate amount of time creating a productive environment (cleaning, filing,
etc.) and not nearly enough time actually writing. Dont fall into that trap! While cleaning
and filing are indeed worthy and necessary activities, if you only do this when you have an
approaching writing deadline, then you are procrastinating.]
While you are thinking about where to write, consider also when you will write. When are
you most alert? Is it at 8 a.m., mid-morning, mid-afternoon, early evening, or late at night?
Try to schedule writing time when you know you will be at your best. Dont worry about
when you should be able to write; just focus on when you are able to write.
Challenge your myths.

In order to break the procrastination habit, we need to get past the idea that in order to
write, we must have all the information pertaining to the topic, and we must have optimal
writing conditions. In reality, writers never have all the information, and conditions are
never optimal.
Think of a writing project that you are currently putting off. On one side of a piece of paper,
write down all the reasons for your delay. On the other side, argue (as convincingly as
possible!) against the delay.
Myth #1: I cant function in a messy environment. I cant possibly write this paper until I
have cleaned my apartment.
Challenge: There are no conditions that are necessary in order for you to write, save two:
1) You must have a writing implement (e.g., a keyboard or a pen) and 2) you must have
someplace for writing to go, such as into a computer or onto a piece of paper. If, when faced
with a writing project, you start piling up prerequisites for all the things you must do before
you can possibly start writing, consider whether you might in fact be making excusesin
other words, procrastinating.
Myth #2: I know its time for me to start writing, but I just havent done enough research
yet. Ill spend one more night at the library, and then Ill start writing my paper.
Challenge: Truth be told, you will never collect all the information you possibly could for
your paper. Better to write a tightly-crafted argument with the information you have NOW,
AT THIS VERY MOMENT, than to keep doing research and risk throwing your paper together
at the last minute.
Myth #3: I do my best work under pressure.
Challenge: There are lots of other ways to create pressure for yourself, besides waiting
until the night before the paper is due to start writing it. You can set a time limit for yourself
for example, I will write this paragraph in houror you can pretend that the paper is
a timed essay exam. If you do this a week or two before the paper is due, youll have a
draft in plenty of time to revise and edit it.
Myth #4: In order to work on my paper, I must have six uninterrupted hours.
Challenge: You can and should work on a paper in one hour blocks (or shorter). This will
help you break the writing task down into smaller pieces, thereby making it seem more
manageable. If you know that you can work on one part of the paper for one hour, then it
wont seem so daunting, and you will be less likely to procrastinate.
Some writers find, however, that they do need longer blocks of time in order to really
produce anything. Therefore, like all of the strategies outlined here, if this one doesnt work
for you, throw it out and try something else. You might still find, however, that you are more
productive when you plan to write all morning rather than all day.
Myth #5: What I write has to be perfect, AND/OR I cant write anything until I have a
perfect thesis statement/intro.
Challenge: A first draft (or a second, or a third, or evenegad!the final product) does
not have to be perfect. When we write an early draft, we need to turn off our internal critic
and just get some words down on the page. The great thing about starting early on a
writing project is that it leaves us plenty of time for revision, editing, and proofreading; so,
we can set ourselves free to just let our writing flow, without worrying about sentence-level
concerns such as grammar, punctuation, and style. Youll find some other thoughts on
editing in our handouts on proofreading and revision.
Break it down.
The day you get the paper assignment (ideally), or shortly thereafter, break the writing
assignment up into the smallest possible chunks. By doing this, the paper never has a
chance to take on gargantuan proportions in your mind. You can say to yourself, Right now,
Im going to write the introduction. Thats all, just the introduction! And you may be more
likely to sit down and do that, than you will to sit down and write the paper.
Get a new attitude.

We shoot ourselves in the foot, to begin with, by telling ourselves how horrible a particular
writing assignment is. Changing our attitude toward the task, when possible, may go a long
way toward keeping us from procrastinating. Tell yourself that the task isnt so bad or
difficult, that you either know how to do it, or that you can learn how while youre doing it.
You may find, too, that if you start early on a particular assignment, your attitude never has
a chance to get very negative in the first place! Simply starting to write can often help us
feel more positive about writing.
Ask for help.
Get an anti-procrastination coach. If you are really determined not to procrastinate,

then get help from the supportive people in your life. Tell someone about your writing
goal and timeline, and ask them to help you determine whether or not your plan is
realistic. Once or twice a week, email with a friend, relative, or mentor, in order to report
(admit?) on your progress, and declare your promise for the next week (or few days). If,
despite your very good intentions, you start procrastinating again, do not think, All is
lost! Instead, talk to someone about it. They may be able to help you put your slip into
perspective and get back on track.
Get a buddy. See if you can find a friend to work alongside you. They dont have to
be writing a paper; in fact, they can be playing Solitaire, for all you care. What matters is
that you arrange to meet them at the library (or wherever you have decided to write) at
a particular time and stay there for a specific period of time, thus creating accountability.
Get help with your writing. If you are procrastinating because you think you are a
weak writer, then ask someone (a Writing Center tutor, a current or former professor or
teaching assistant, a friend) to help you improve.
Form a writing group. A writing group is a great way for undergraduate and more
advanced writers alike to create accountability, get feedback, and simply get reminded
that you are not alone in the struggle to produce and to improve your writing. See
our writing group packet at for more information on how to form and sustain a writing
group. Dissertation writers may benefit not only from joining a writing group but also
from reading our handout on the dissertation. This handout was written by a former
Writing Center staff member who eventually completed her dissertation.
Get unblocked.
Sometimes, we procrastinate because we feel stuck on a particular essay or section of an
essay. If this happens, you have several options:
Turn off the screen. Type with a dark screen, so you cant see what youve written,
decide you dont like it, and delete it immediately. Sometimes procrastination stems from
insecurity about what to say, or whether we have anything to say. The important thing, in
that case, is to get started and KEEP GOING. Turning off the screen may help lessen your
fear and turn off your internal critic. When you turn it back on (or print out what youve
written), you may find that you do have something to say, after all.
Write about writing. Take 15 minutes and write a letter to yourself about why you
dont want to write this. This lets you vent your frustrations and anxieties. Then, Take 15
minutes and write about what you could do to get unstuck. You can also try writing about
what youre going to write, making an initial assessment of the assignment. You wont
have the pressure of writing an actually draft, but you will be able to get something down
on paper.
Write the easiest part first. You dont have to start at the beginning. Whatever
section you can do, do it! If you think thats wimpy, and you would rather do the hardest
part first so that you can get it out of the way, thats finewhatever works for you. If you
start writing and you get stuck, write about why youre stuck.
Talk it out. Try tape-recording yourself speaking the ideas you want to include in
the paper, and then transcribe the tape.
Make yourself accountable.

Set a writing deadline (other than the papers due date) for yourself by making an
appointment at the Writing Center or telling your TA (or a former TA) that youre going to
give them a draft on such-and-such a date. If you make your Writing Center appointment
for several days before the paper is due, then you may be motivated to have a draft
finished, in order to make the appointment worthwhile.
Leave your work out.

Keeping your work (books, notes, articles, etc.) physically out, in full view, gives you a
reminder that you are in the middle of the paper, or that you need to start. Also, if you write
in more than one shift, it can be helpful to leave off in the middle of a paragraph and leave
your tools where they are. When you return to the paper, youll be able to warm up by
finishing that paragraph. Starting a new section cold may be more difficult.
Work on improving your writing when you dont have a deadline.

Investigate your writing process. First of all, you may not think you have a thing called a
writing process. But you doeveryone does. Describe your writing process in detail.
Ask yourself:
When do I usually start on a paper?
What tools do I need (or think I need) in order to write?
Where do I write?
Do I like quiet or noise when I write?
How long a block of time do I need?
What do I do before I start?
What do I do at the end?
How do I feel at the end (after I have turned it in)?

Then ask yourself:
What do I like about my writing process?
What do I want to change?

Once you can see your writing process, then you can make a decision to change it. But take
it easy with thisonly work on one part at a time. Otherwise, youll get overwhelmed and
frustratedand we all know where that leads, straight down the procrastination road.
Evaluate your writings strengths and weaknesses.

If you arent ready to evaluate your writing process completely (and its okay if you arent),
then you could try just listing your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. For instance,
perhaps you are great at creating thesis statements, but you have trouble developing
arguments. Or, your papers are very well-organized, but your thesis and argument tend to
fall a little flat. Identifying these issues will help you do two things: 1) When you write, you
can play to your strength; and 2) You can choose one weakness and do something about it
when you DONT have a deadline.
Now, doing anything when you dont have a deadline may sound strange to a procrastinator,
but bear with me. Lets say youve decided that your writing is too wordy, and you want to
work on being more concise. So, some time when you dont have a paperbut you do have
a free houryou waltz into the Writing Center and tell your tutor, Hey, I want learn how to
write more clearly. You confer, and you come away with some simple strategies for
eliminating wordiness.
Here is why this may make a difference the next time you write a paper, regardless of
whether or not you have procrastinated (again!): You print out your draft. Its 1 a.m. You go
to bed. The next morning, you read over your paper (its due at noon). You say to yourself,
Hmmm, I notice Im being too wordy. BUT, rather than concluding, Oh, well, its too late,
there isnt anything I can do about that, (as you may have in the past), you can choose to
employ some of what you learned (previously, when you werent under the gun) to make
your writing more concise. You edit the paper accordingly. You turn it in.
When your instructor hands the papers back the following week, there are far fewer
instances of awkward, unclear, etc. in the margins. Voila! Youve made a positive change
in your writing process!
What does this have to do with procrastination? Well, making one small change in your
writing process creates momentum. You begin to feel more positive about your writing. You
begin to be less intimidated by writing assignments. Andeventuallyyou start them
earlier, because they just arent as big a deal as they used to be.
Evaluating the strengths and weaknesses in your writing gives you a sense of control. Your
writing problems are solvable problems. Working on your writing when you dont have a
deadline helps you gain insight and momentum. Soon, writing becomes something that,
while you may not look forward to it, you dont dread quite as much. Thus, you dont
procrastinate quite as much.
This strategy also accounts for the fact that if you perceive procrastination as having been
successful for you in the past, you arent going to give it up right away
Hone your proofreading and editing skills.

If you procrastinate on writing because you dont like to re-read what you have written, the
good news is this: you can learn specificproofreading, revising, and editing strategies. If you
finish your paper ahead of time, and you re-read it, and you dont like it, you have options.
Writing a first draft that you dont like doesnt mean youre a terrible writer. Many writers
in fact, I would venture to say mosthate their first drafts. Neither Leo Tolstoy nor Toni
Morrison produce(d) brilliant prose the first time around. In fact, Morrison (a big fan of
revision) said recently that you dont have to love your writing just because you wrote it! If
you practice some revision and editing strategies, you may feel more comfortable with the
idea of re-reading your papers. Youll know that if you find weaknesses in the draft (and you
will), you can do something to improve those areas.
Learn how to tell time.

One of the best ways to combat procrastination is to develop a more realistic understanding
of time. Procrastinators views of time tend to be fairly unrealistic. This paper is only going
to take me about five hours to write, you think. Therefore, I dont need to start on it until
the night before. What you may be forgetting, however, is that our time is often filled with
more activities than we realize. On the night in question, for instance, lets say you go to the
gym at 4:45 p.m. You work out (1 hour), take a shower and dress (30 minutes), eat dinner
(45 minutes), and go to a sorority meeting (1 hour). By the time you get back to your dorm
room to begin work on the paper, it is already 8:00 p.m. But now you need to check your
email and return a couple of phone calls. Its 8:30 p.m. before you finally sit down to write
the paper. If the paper does indeed take five hours to write, you will be up until 1:30 in the
morningand that doesnt include the time that you will inevitably spend watching TV.
And, as it turns out, it takes about five hours to write a first draft of the essay. You have
forgotten to allow time for revision, editing, and proofreading. You get the paper done and
turn it in the next morning. But you know it isnt your best work, and you are pretty tired
from the late night, and so you make yourself a promise: Next time, Ill start early!
Make an unschedule.
The next time you have a writing deadline, try using an un-schedule to outline a realistic
plan for when you will write. An un-schedule is a weekly calendar of all the ways in which
your time is already accounted for. When you make an un-schedule, you consider not only
your timed commitments such as classes and meetings, but also your untimed activities
such as meals, exercise, errands, laundry, time with friends and family, and the like. It is
not a list of what you should do in a given week; rather it is an outline of the time that you
will necessarily spend doing other things besides writing.
Once you have made your un-schedule, take a look at the blank spaces. These represent
the maximum number of hours that you could potentially spend writing. By starting with
these blank spaces as a guide, you will be able to more accurately predict how much time
you will be able to write on any given day. You may be able to see, for instance, that you
really dont have five hours to spend writing on the night before the paper is due. By
planning accordingly, you will not only get a better nights sleep, you may also end up with a
better paper!
The un-schedule might also be a good way to get started on a larger writing project, such as
a term paper or an honors thesis. You may think that you have all semester to get the
writing done, but if you really sit down and map out how much time you have available to
write on a daily and weekly basis, you will see that you need to get started sooner, rather
than later. In addition, the unschedule may reveal especially busy weeks or months, which
will help you budget time for long-term projects.
Perhaps most importantly, the un-schedule can help you examine how you spend your time.
You may be surprised at how much (or how little) time you spend watching television, and
decide to make a change. Its especially important that you build time for fun activities into
your un-schedule. Otherwise, you will procrastinate in order to steal time for relaxation.
You can also use the un-schedule to record your progress towards your goal. Each time you
work on your paper, for example, mark it on the un-schedule. One of the most important
things you can do to kick the procrastination habit is to reward yourself when you write
something, even if (especially if) that writing is only a little piece of the whole. Seeing your
success on paper will help reinforce the productive behavior, and you will feel more
motivated to write later in the day or week.
Set a time limit.

Okay, so maybe one of the reasons you procrastinate on writing projects is that you just
plain hate writing! You would rather be at the dentist than sitting in front of your computer
with a blank Microsoft Word document staring you in the face. In that case, it may be
helpful to set limits on how much time you will spend writing before you do something else.
While the notation Must work on Hemingway essay all weekend may not inspire you to sit
down and write, Worked on Hemingway essay for hour just might. Or, if you tell
yourself that you will write all weekend, for instance, the sheer agony of the thought may
keep you from doing any writing at all. If, however, you say that you will write for two hours
on Saturday afternoon, you may actually accomplish something. The important thing here is
to keep your commitment to yourself. Even if, at the end of the two hours, you think you
could keep going, stop. Go outside and enjoy the weather. Your procrastinating self needs to
be able to trust your new non-procrastinating self the next time you say you will only write
for a certain amount of time. If you go overboard this time, then the next time you say, Ill
write for two hours and then stop, the procrastinator within will respond, Yeah, right! Im
going rollerblading!
On the other hand, it may work better for you to trick yourself into working on your paper
by telling yourself youre only going to write for two hours, but then continuing to work if
youre feeling inspired. Experiment with both approaches and see which one seems to work
best for you.
Be realistic about how long it takes you to write.

Procrastinators tend to be heroic about time; they estimate that it will take them two hours
to complete a task that would take most people four. Once you have determined that
procrastination is hurting your writing, begin taking notice of how long it actually takes you
to write. Many students have a page an hour rule. Perhaps you can write a page in an
hour if you are totally rested, fed, and focused, your roommate isnt home, and the wind is
blowing just right. But what if the phone rings, what if you are tired, and what if you have
to go to the bathroom? When you estimate how long it will take you to write something,
expect that there will be interruptions along the way.
PARTING THOUGHTS
As you explore why you procrastinate and experiment with strategies for working differently,
dont expect overnight transformation. You developed the procrastination habit over a long
period of time; you arent going to stop magically. But you can change the behavior, bit by
bit. If you stop punishing yourself when you procrastinate and start rewarding yourself for
your small successes, you will eventually develop new writing habits. And you will get a lot
more sleep.
WORKS CONSULTED
We consulted these works while writing the original version of this handout. This is not a
comprehensive list of resources on the handouts topic, and we encourage you to do your
own research to find the latest publications on this topic. Please do not use this list as a
model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you
are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation
tutorial.
Burka, Jane B. and Lenora M. Yuen. Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About
It. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publ. Co., 1983.
Ellis, Albert, and William J. Overcoming Procrastination. New York: Signet Books, 1977.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialNoDerivs 2.5 License.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout (just click print)
and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Download as PDF
If you enjoy using our handouts, we appreciate contributions of acknowledgement.
The Writing Center Campus Box #5137 SASB North Suite 0127 UNC-CH Chapel Hill, NC
27599 CSSAC Home
phone: (919) 962-7710 email: writing_center@unc.edu
2010-2014 by The Writing Center at UNC Chapel Hill.
Coach login
December 2005
The most impressive people I know are all terrible
procrastinators. So could it be that procrastination isn't always
bad?
Most people who write about procrastination write about how to
cure it. But this is, strictly speaking, impossible. There are an
infinite number of things you could be doing. No matter what
you work on, you're not working on everything else. So the
question is not how to avoid procrastination, but how to
procrastinate well.
There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what
you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a)
nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more
important. That last type, I'd argue, is good procrastination.
That's the "absent-minded professor," who forgets to shave, or
eat, or even perhaps look where he's going while he's thinking
about some interesting question. His mind is absent from the
everyday world because it's hard at work in another.
That's the sense in which the most impressive people I know
are all procrastinators. They're type-C procrastinators: they put
off working on small stuff to work on big stuff.
What's "small stuff?" Roughly, work that has zero chance of
being mentioned in your obituary. It's hard to say at the time
what will turn out to be your best work (will it be your magnum
opus on Sumerian temple architecture, or the detective thriller
you wrote under a pseudonym?), but there's a whole class of
tasks you can safely rule out: shaving, doing your laundry,
cleaning the house, writing thank-you notesanything that
might be called an errand.
Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work.

Good in a sense, at least. The people who want you to do the
errands won't think it's good. But you probably have to annoy
them if you want to get anything done. The mildest seeming
people, if they want to do real work, all have a certain degree of
ruthlessness when it comes to avoiding errands.
Some errands, like replying to letters, go away if you ignore
them (perhaps taking friends with them). Others, like mowing
the lawn, or filing tax returns, only get worse if you put them
off. In principle it shouldn't work to put off the second kind of
errand. You're going to have to do whatever it is eventually.
Why not (as past-due notices are always saying) do it now?
The reason it pays to put off even those errands is that real
work needs two things errands don't: big chunks of time, and
the right mood. If you get inspired by some project, it can be a
net win to blow off everything you were supposed to do for the
next few days to work on it. Yes, those errands may cost you
more time when you finally get around to them. But if you get a
lot done during those few days, you will be net more productive.
In fact, it may not be a difference in degree, but a difference in
kind. There may be types of work that can only be done in long,
uninterrupted stretches, when inspiration hits, rather than
dutifully in scheduled little slices. Empirically it seems to be so.
When I think of the people I know who've done great things, I
don't imagine them dutifully crossing items off to-do lists. I
imagine them sneaking off to work on some new idea.
Conversely, forcing someone to perform errands synchronously
is bound to limit their productivity. The cost of an interruption is
not just the time it takes, but that it breaks the time on either
side in half. You probably only have to interrupt someone a
couple times a day before they're unable to work on hard
problems at all.
I've wondered a lot about why startups are most productive at
the very beginning, when they're just a couple guys in an
apartment. The main reason may be that there's no one to
interrupt them yet. In theory it's good when the founders finally
get enough money to hire people to do some of the work for
them. But it may be better to be overworked than interrupted.
Once you dilute a startup with ordinary office workerswith
type-B procrastinatorsthe whole company starts to resonate
at their frequency. They're interrupt-driven, and soon you are
too.
Errands are so effective at killing great projects that a lot of
people use them for that purpose. Someone who has decided to
write a novel, for example, will suddenly find that the house
needs cleaning. People who fail to write novels don't do it by

sitting in front of a blank page for days without writing
anything. They do it by feeding the cat, going out to buy
something they need for their apartment, meeting a friend for
coffee, checking email. "I don't have time to work," they say.
And they don't; they've made sure of that.
(There's also a variant where one has no place to work. The
cure is to visit the places where famous people worked, and see
how unsuitable they were.)
I've used both these excuses at one time or another. I've
learned a lot of tricks for making myself work over the last 20
years, but even now I don't win consistently. Some days I get
real work done. Other days are eaten up by errands. And I
know it's usually my fault: I let errands eat up the day, to avoid
facing some hard problem.
The most dangerous form of procrastination is unacknowledged
type-B procrastination, because it doesn't feel like
procrastination. You're "getting things done." Just the wrong
things.
Any advice about procrastination that concentrates on crossing
things off your to-do list is not only incomplete, but positively
misleading, if it doesn't consider the possibility that the to-do
list is itself a form of type-B procrastination. In fact, possibility
is too weak a word. Nearly everyone's is. Unless you're working
on the biggest things you could be working on, you're type-B
procrastinating, no matter how much you're getting done.
In his famous essay You and Your Research (which I
recommend to anyone ambitious, no matter what they're
working on), Richard Hamming suggests that you ask yourself
three questions:
1. What are the most important problems in your field?
2. Are you working on one of them?
3. Why not?
Hamming was at Bell Labs when he started asking such
questions. In principle anyone there ought to have been able to
work on the most important problems in their field. Perhaps not
everyone can make an equally dramatic mark on the world; I
don't know; but whatever your capacities, there are projects
that stretch them. So Hamming's exercise can be generalized
to:
What's the best thing you could be working on, and why aren't
you?
Most people will shy away from this question. I shy away from it
myself; I see it there on the page and quickly move on to the
next sentence. Hamming used to go around actually asking
people this, and it didn't make him popular. But it's a question
anyone ambitious should face.
The trouble is, you may end up hooking a very big fish with this
bait. To do good work, you need to do more than find good
projects. Once you've found them, you have to get yourself to
work on them, and that can be hard. The bigger the problem,
the harder it is to get yourself to work on it.
Of course, the main reason people find it difficult to work on a
particular problem is that they don't enjoy it. When you're
young, especially, you often find yourself working on stuff you
don't really like-- because it seems impressive, for example, or
because you've been assigned to work on it. Most grad students
are stuck working on big problems they don't really like, and
grad school is thus synonymous with procrastination.
But even when you like what you're working on, it's easier to
get yourself to work on small problems than big ones. Why?
Why is it so hard to work on big problems? One reason is that
you may not get any reward in the forseeable future. If you
work on something you can finish in a day or two, you can
expect to have a nice feeling of accomplishment fairly soon. If
the reward is indefinitely far in the future, it seems less real.
Another reason people don't work on big projects is, ironically,
fear of wasting time. What if they fail? Then all the time they
spent on it will be wasted. (In fact it probably won't be, because
work on hard projects almost always leads somewhere.)
But the trouble with big problems can't be just that they
promise no immediate reward and might cause you to waste a
lot of time. If that were all, they'd be no worse than going to
visit your in-laws. There's more to it than that. Big problems
areterrifying. There's an almost physical pain in facing them. It's
like having a vacuum cleaner hooked up to your imagination. All
your initial ideas get sucked out immediately, and you don't
have any more, and yet the vacuum cleaner is still sucking.
You can't look a big problem too directly in the eye. You have to
approach it somewhat obliquely. But you have to adjust the
angle just right: you have to be facing the big problem directly
enough that you catch some of the excitement radiating from it,
but not so much that it paralyzes you. You can tighten the angle
once you get going, just as a sailboat can sail closer to the wind
once it gets underway.
If you want to work on big things, you seem to have to trick
yourself into doing it. You have to work on small things that
could grow into big things, or work on successively larger
things, or split the moral load with collaborators. It's not a sign
of weakness to depend on such tricks. The very best work has
been done this way.
When I talk to people who've managed to make themselves
work on big things, I find that all blow off errands, and all feel
guilty about it. I don't think they should feel guilty. There's
more to do than anyone could. So someone doing the best work
they can is inevitably going to leave a lot of errands undone. It
seems a mistake to feel bad about that.
I think the way to "solve" the problem of procrastination is to let
delight pull you instead of making a to-do list push you. Work
on an ambitious project you really enjoy, and sail as close to the
wind as you can, and you'll leave the right things undone.
Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert

Morris for reading drafts of this.
Romanian Translation
Russian Translation
Hebrew Translation
German Translation
Portuguese Translation
Italian Translation
Japanese Translation
Spanish Translation
This long word literally means putting forward to tomorrow; for it is derived from the
Latin word, eras, tomorrow, and prefix pro, before or forward.
Of course it is sometimes necessary and wise to postpone a decision or an action,
where hasty conclusions would be foolish; but procrastination always means putting
things off tomorrow which ought to be done today.
It is the fault of dilatoriness and laziness, that leads us to shirk the doing of present
duties and inclines us to defer them to some future time.
Thus the fault of procrastination is just the opposite of the virtue of punctuality. A
punctual man takes care to do what has to be done exactly at the right time; the dilatory
man never does anything at the right time, but always wants to put it off till tomorrow, or
next week, or next year.
Procrastination, if it is not firmly checked, soon grows into bad habit, which at last
makes the punctual performance of daily duties impossible. It may be due to sheer
laziness, and disinclination to work when work seems inconvenient; or it may be due to
the illusion that there will be plenty of time in the future to do all we have to do.
This is an illusion, because when we think thus we forget that, even if we shall have
more time to-morrow, we shall have more to do thennot only to-morrows legitimate
work, but todays work which we have neglected, as well.
Every day we put off the work we ought to do, we are piling up an accumulation of work
for to-morrow, and we shall at last find that the arrears of undone work are too big to
overtake. So, in the end, lazy folks take most pains.
Procrastination, it is said, is the thief of time. We have only a limited amount of time
at our disposal; and every hour we waste in idleness, is stolen by that thief,
procrastination, from our stock. Time wasted is time lost.
The lazy man says, Never do to-day what you can put off till to-morrow. But the wise
and busy man takes as his motto the old proverb, Never put off till to-morrow what you
can do today.
And the man who systematically clears off the work that belongs to each day as it
comes, not only avoids the mental burden of unperformed duties, but is also the only
man who knows true leisure.
For at the end of the day, he can spend what time remains in recreation and enjoyment
with a clear conscience, knowing he is well ahead with his work.
So we should take as our motto, Do it now!
Procrastination / reason / problem / postpone
Essay Topic:
A narration on the ability to fight procrastination.
Essay Questions:
Why does procrastination take the best time of the life of any person?
Why do people tend to postpone everything for tomorrow?
What is the most effective way to stop procrastinating?
Thesis Statement:
Procrastination hides in almost every aspect of our everyday life and it is so hard to overcome it. I do
not think I would be able to realize that I had this problem and cope with it until one situation
happened to me.
Procrastination essay
Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday
Unknown author
Introduction: Procrastination takes the best time of the life of any person. There are always hundreds
reasons to wait and to postpone something that seems to be extremely unpleasant to do.
happened to me. Procrastination takes the best time of the life of any person. There are always
hundreds reasons to wait and to postpone something that seems to be extremely unpleasant to do.
happened to me.
So. I woke up in the morning and realized that I did not do it again. It seemed that I was almost ready
to do it but once more something else grabbed my attention.It was a trap with no way out. I felt
terrible! I felt pain all the time and there was nothing I could do about it except doing IT. I remembered
the words of Scarlet OHara: I will think about it tomorrow, and thought that she was not right about
that completely. The problem was that I was thinking about it all the time. I brushed my teeth thinking
about it, had breakfast thinking about it. I prepared for my classes and was still thinking about it. I
thought about it 24/7 and it was getting altogether scary. It got even funny when I thought that the
whole thing would have taken only 1/10 of the time I spent thinking about it. I desperately needed to
do something, to find a way to cope with it! And again I did nothing Then I thought: If I do it I will
buy myself the biggest chocolate I will find in the nearest supermarket. I smiled imagining how I bite it
and feeling how tasty it is. It seemed to be the best reward for me after all. In my imagination I played
over and over again the scene of how I will do it until I understood that the best way to complete
something was to begin it.I clenched my fists, collected all my will power against the force of the habit
to procrastinate. I put on my favorite clothes, nicely brushed my hair, looked at the mirror and said: I
cannot lose that chocolate. I laughed trying to imagine how I looked at the moment for other people.
Crazy? The whole situation converted into a real adventure for me. I sneaked out of the house as a spy
feeling like a have a special task to complete and I cannot fail it. I called it Operation: chocolate in
my head. I walked to the place like I knew a special secret but could not put it into words. I recalled the
two weeks I spent thinking about my problem and with every step my walk became more firm and
confident. I almost start running because I was afraid to stop and turn back.
Conclusion: I came up to the door, took a deep breath and came in. Eventually, it was not that hard
to enter the dentists office and after all to happily run out from it in a hurry to get myself a big
chocolate!I converted something I was afraid of into something that became a real adventure. I have
no reasons to procrastinate until I have my imagination working. If I need a reward I can always
invent it. I am not Robinson Crusoe and I do not need Friday to remember a special secret once I
begin nothing can stop me!
Im what most people might call lazy, lethargic, and a procrastinator. How
did it start? The first specific instance that I can remember was in 5th grade
math class. I didnt do my math. My mentality was that school consumed
more then half of my waking hours and I wasnt going to let it take anymore
then that. So my assignments were partially completed, from the day before,
and handed in unfinished. I knew that my parents and teachers would raise hell
itself when I did this but my mind wouldnt waiver on this. Since I had been
able to get through all of grade school without homework why should I have any
now? Great reasoning for a 5th grader, but this thinking contained a few flaws.
To start out, there are 3 types of people in the world. The first kind will generally
always try their best and be a competitor in life. They treat life as a marathon
that needs a steady vigil pace to complete. The second is the person the will try
to complete the absolute bear minimum to survive and occasionally misjudges
what is needed done. The third and final is the person that absolutely cannot
find any reason to try at all and hope for the best to come to them but never
actively seek it. This is the lowest form of life that will suckle away your money,
forgiveness, and love never sharing it back with you.
To thoroughly understand the three classes of people, a more detailed analysis is

needed. The first kind is the ideal person. One, which all parents and
communities hope to produce. They are considered the leaders, overachievers,
and well standing citizens. The second class is the C student of life. Theyre
the average person who occasionally does exceptional work but for the most
part will be in the shadows of the first class. Procrastination and laziness is most
common to occur in this class and becomes extreme when we reach the third
class. The 3rd class no longer tries or cares too much about their life
December 2005
The most impressive people I know are all terrible
procrastinators. So could it be that procrastination isn't always
bad?
Most people who write about procrastination write about how to
cure it. But this is, strictly speaking, impossible. There are an
infinite number of things you could be doing. No matter what
you work on, you're not working on everything else. So the
question is not how to avoid procrastination, but how to
procrastinate well.
There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what
you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a)
nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more
important. That last type, I'd argue, is good procrastination.
That's the "absent-minded professor," who forgets to shave, or
eat, or even perhaps look where he's going while he's thinking
about some interesting question. His mind is absent from the
everyday world because it's hard at work in another.
That's the sense in which the most impressive people I know
are all procrastinators. They're type-C procrastinators: they put
off working on small stuff to work on big stuff.
What's "small stuff?" Roughly, work that has zero chance of
being mentioned in your obituary. It's hard to say at the time
what will turn out to be your best work (will it be your magnum
opus on Sumerian temple architecture, or the detective thriller
you wrote under a pseudonym?), but there's a whole class of
tasks you can safely rule out: shaving, doing your laundry,
cleaning the house, writing thank-you notesanything that
might be called an errand.
Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work.
Good in a sense, at least. The people who want you to do the

errands won't think it's good. But you probably have to annoy
them if you want to get anything done. The mildest seeming
people, if they want to do real work, all have a certain degree of
ruthlessness when it comes to avoiding errands.
Some errands, like replying to letters, go away if you ignore
them (perhaps taking friends with them). Others, like mowing
the lawn, or filing tax returns, only get worse if you put them
off. In principle it shouldn't work to put off the second kind of
errand. You're going to have to do whatever it is eventually.
Why not (as past-due notices are always saying) do it now?
The reason it pays to put off even those errands is that real
work needs two things errands don't: big chunks of time, and
the right mood. If you get inspired by some project, it can be a
net win to blow off everything you were supposed to do for the
next few days to work on it. Yes, those errands may cost you
more time when you finally get around to them. But if you get a
lot done during those few days, you will be net more productive.
In fact, it may not be a difference in degree, but a difference in
kind. There may be types of work that can only be done in long,
uninterrupted stretches, when inspiration hits, rather than
dutifully in scheduled little slices. Empirically it seems to be so.
When I think of the people I know who've done great things, I
don't imagine them dutifully crossing items off to-do lists. I
imagine them sneaking off to work on some new idea.
Conversely, forcing someone to perform errands synchronously
is bound to limit their productivity. The cost of an interruption is
not just the time it takes, but that it breaks the time on either
side in half. You probably only have to interrupt someone a
couple times a day before they're unable to work on hard
problems at all.
I've wondered a lot about why startups are most productive at
the very beginning, when they're just a couple guys in an
apartment. The main reason may be that there's no one to
interrupt them yet. In theory it's good when the founders finally
get enough money to hire people to do some of the work for
them. But it may be better to be overworked than interrupted.
Once you dilute a startup with ordinary office workerswith
type-B procrastinatorsthe whole company starts to resonate
at their frequency. They're interrupt-driven, and soon you are
too.
Errands are so effective at killing great projects that a lot of
people use them for that purpose. Someone who has decided to
write a novel, for example, will suddenly find that the house
needs cleaning. People who fail to write novels don't do it by
sitting in front of a blank page for days without writing
anything. They do it by feeding the cat, going out to buy

something they need for their apartment, meeting a friend for
coffee, checking email. "I don't have time to work," they say.
And they don't; they've made sure of that.
(There's also a variant where one has no place to work. The
cure is to visit the places where famous people worked, and see
how unsuitable they were.)
I've used both these excuses at one time or another. I've
learned a lot of tricks for making myself work over the last 20
years, but even now I don't win consistently. Some days I get
real work done. Other days are eaten up by errands. And I
know it's usually my fault: I let errands eat up the day, to avoid
facing some hard problem.
The most dangerous form of procrastination is unacknowledged
type-B procrastination, because it doesn't feel like
procrastination. You're "getting things done." Just the wrong
things.
Any advice about procrastination that concentrates on crossing
things off your to-do list is not only incomplete, but positively
misleading, if it doesn't consider the possibility that the to-do
list is itself a form of type-B procrastination. In fact, possibility
is too weak a word. Nearly everyone's is. Unless you're working
on the biggest things you could be working on, you're type-B
procrastinating, no matter how much you're getting done.
In his famous essay You and Your Research (which I
recommend to anyone ambitious, no matter what they're
working on), Richard Hamming suggests that you ask yourself
three questions:
1. What are the most important problems in your field?
2. Are you working on one of them?
3. Why not?
Hamming was at Bell Labs when he started asking such
questions. In principle anyone there ought to have been able to
work on the most important problems in their field. Perhaps not
everyone can make an equally dramatic mark on the world; I
don't know; but whatever your capacities, there are projects
that stretch them. So Hamming's exercise can be generalized
to:
What's the best thing you could be working on, and why aren't
you?
Most people will shy away from this question. I shy away from it
myself; I see it there on the page and quickly move on to the
next sentence. Hamming used to go around actually asking
people this, and it didn't make him popular. But it's a question
anyone ambitious should face.
The trouble is, you may end up hooking a very big fish with this
bait. To do good work, you need to do more than find good
projects. Once you've found them, you have to get yourself to
work on them, and that can be hard. The bigger the problem,
the harder it is to get yourself to work on it.
Of course, the main reason people find it difficult to work on a
particular problem is that they don't enjoy it. When you're
young, especially, you often find yourself working on stuff you
don't really like-- because it seems impressive, for example, or
because you've been assigned to work on it. Most grad students
are stuck working on big problems they don't really like, and
grad school is thus synonymous with procrastination.
But even when you like what you're working on, it's easier to
get yourself to work on small problems than big ones. Why?
Why is it so hard to work on big problems? One reason is that
you may not get any reward in the forseeable future. If you
work on something you can finish in a day or two, you can
expect to have a nice feeling of accomplishment fairly soon. If
the reward is indefinitely far in the future, it seems less real.
Another reason people don't work on big projects is, ironically,
fear of wasting time. What if they fail? Then all the time they
spent on it will be wasted. (In fact it probably won't be, because
work on hard projects almost always leads somewhere.)
But the trouble with big problems can't be just that they
promise no immediate reward and might cause you to waste a
lot of time. If that were all, they'd be no worse than going to
visit your in-laws. There's more to it than that. Big problems
areterrifying. There's an almost physical pain in facing them. It's
like having a vacuum cleaner hooked up to your imagination. All
your initial ideas get sucked out immediately, and you don't
have any more, and yet the vacuum cleaner is still sucking.
You can't look a big problem too directly in the eye. You have to
approach it somewhat obliquely. But you have to adjust the
angle just right: you have to be facing the big problem directly
enough that you catch some of the excitement radiating from it,
but not so much that it paralyzes you. You can tighten the angle
once you get going, just as a sailboat can sail closer to the wind
once it gets underway.
If you want to work on big things, you seem to have to trick
yourself into doing it. You have to work on small things that
could grow into big things, or work on successively larger
things, or split the moral load with collaborators. It's not a sign
of weakness to depend on such tricks. The very best work has
been done this way.
When I talk to people who've managed to make themselves

work on big things, I find that all blow off errands, and all feel
guilty about it. I don't think they should feel guilty. There's
more to do than anyone could. So someone doing the best work
they can is inevitably going to leave a lot of errands undone. It
seems a mistake to feel bad about that.
I think the way to "solve" the problem of procrastination is to let
delight pull you instead of making a to-do list push you. Work
on an ambitious project you really enjoy, and sail as close to the
wind as you can, and you'll leave the right things undone.
Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert

Morris for reading drafts of this.
Romanian Translation
Russian Translation
Hebrew Translation
German Translation
Portuguese Translation
Italian Translation
Japanese Translation
Spanish Translation
Structured Procrastination Do less. Think more.
Structured Procrastination: Do Less,

Deceive Yourself, And Succeed LongTerm.
. . . anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isnt the work

he is supposed to be doing at that moment. Robert Benchley, in
Chips off the Old Benchley, 1949
I have been intending to write this essay for months. Why am I finally doing
it? Because I finally found some uncommitted time? Wrong. I have papers to
grade, textbook orders to fill out, an NSF proposal to referee, dissertation
drafts to read. I am working on this essay as a way of not doing all of those
things.
This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing

strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human
beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good
use they make of time. All procrastinators put off things they have to do.
Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you.
The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing.
Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful
things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they
will reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the
procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing
something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to
sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him do it. However, the
procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks,

as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.
Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has
to do in a way that exploits this fact. The list of tasks one has in mind will be
ordered by importance. Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on
top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list.
Doing these tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher up on the
list. With this sort of appropriate task structure, the procrastinator becomes a
useful citizen. Indeed, the procrastinator can even acquire, as I have, a
reputation for getting a lot done.
The most perfect situation for structured procrastination that I ever had was
when my wife and I served as Resident Fellows in Soto House, a Stanford
dormitory. In the evening, faced with papers to grade, lectures to prepare,
committee work to be done, I would leave our cottage next to the dorm and
go over to the lounge and play ping-pong with the residents, or talk over
things with them in their rooms, or just sit there and read the paper. I got a
reputation for being a terrific Resident Fellow, and one of the rare profs on
campus who spent time with undergraduates and got to know them. What a
set up: play ping pong as a way of not doing more important things, and get
a reputation as Mr. Chips.
Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize
their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they
will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the
basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of
motivation. The few tasks on his list will be by definition the most important,
and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to
become a couch potato, not an effective human being.
At this point you may be asking, How about the important tasks at the top
of the list, that one never does? Admittedly, there is a potential problem
here.
The trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list. The ideal
sorts of things have two characteristics, First, they seem to have clear
deadlines (but really dont). Second, they seem awfully important (but really
arent). Luckily, life abounds with such tasks. In universities the vast majority
of tasks fall into this category, and Im sure the same is true for most other
large institutions. Take for example the item right at the top of my list right
now. This is finishing an essay for a volume in the philosophy of language. It
was supposed to be done eleven months ago. I have accomplished an
enormous number of important things as a way of not working on it. A couple
of months ago, bothered by guilt, I wrote a letter to the editor saying how
sorry I was to be so late and expressing my good intentions to get to work.
Writing the letter was, of course, a way of not working on the article. It
turned out that I really wasnt much further behind schedule than anyone
else. And how important is this article anyway? Not so important that at
some point something that seems more important wont come along. Then
Ill get to work on it.
Another example is book order forms. I write this in June. In October, I will
teach a class on Epistemology. The book order forms are already overdue at
the book store. It is easy to take this as an important task with a pressing
deadline (for you non-procrastinators, I will observe that deadlines really
start to press a week or two after they pass.) I get almost daily reminders
from the department secretary, students sometimes ask me what we will be
reading, and the unfilled order form sits right in the middle of my desk, right
under the wrapping from the sandwich I ate last Wednesday. This task is near
the top of my list; it bothers me, and motivates me to do other useful but
superficially less important things. But in fact, the book store is plenty busy
with forms already filed by non-procrastinators. I can get mine in midSummer and things will be fine. I just need to order popular well-known
books from efficient publishers. I will accept some other, apparently more
important, task sometime between now and, say, August 1st. Then my
psyche will feel comfortable about filling out the order forms as a way of not
doing this new task.
The observant reader may feel at this point that structured procrastination
requires a certain amount of self-deception, since one is in effect constantly
perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. Exactly. One needs to be able to
recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal
deadlines, while making oneself feel that they are important and urgent. This
is not a problem, because virtually all procrastinators have excellent selfdeceptive skills also. And what could be more noble than using one character
flaw to offset the bad effects of another?
Comments
1.
Carsten
July 9, 2015 at 7:31 am
How I ended up on this site is beyond me. I started my browser and there it
was. I havent been thinking about procrastination for a long time.
I really need to submit a paper in order to get my PhD, the data is there, the
analysis has been done, I just need to write things up. Thus Im very
productive in matters related to teaching.
However I cant find anything else important enough to finally start writing
that paper. What to do if things are starting to get really urgent and are
important in itself (like the paper)? The things you mention are not applicable
in my spot and in fact dont seem important
Am I just lacking self-deceptive skills?

Anyways great post, cheers
Reply
2.
Liz
July 23, 2015 at 2:02 pm
Nice
Reply
3.
Karen Vaughn
August 4, 2015 at 1:39 pm
I enjoyed your essay on procrastination. I can see clearly now!

Karen
Reply
Alexandru
4.
September 1, 2015 at 12:33 pm
Well its good to deceive yourself with some things, but you have to realize
at some point that you have to work pretty hard if you want performance.
Not to stress to much, but to focus on your goal and to do small steps every
day towards it thats how youll win the war.
Reply
5.
Simon Dell
This looks useful. Ill read it later when I should be doing some housework or
finishing off some work for my client.
Reply
6.
Tim
This is so dead on. Thanks for writing.

Reply
7.
Jakob Klzer
Ive been employing a similar scheme like this for a while. It works
reasonably well, even though I should be working on something else right
now. Which makes me wonder, what more important task did you ignore to
write this fantastic essay?
Reply
8.
Peter Raffensperger
This is wonderful
Reply
Doguhan Uluca
9.
Great read! Without realizing Ive been doing something like this. But now
theres a great recipe for it out there, Ill do it with more intent and hopefully
increase my overall productivity
Reply
10.
Andrew Kelley
I enjoyed the essay, although the fancy pants header bar made it difficult to
read on a mobile device.
Reply
11.
Rohan
Whattay post!
Reply
12.
Zach
Wow, this hit the nail on the head for me. My key to a successful professional
life has been to find one thing which is more unappealing to do than
everything else I need to do. Once Ive done that, all the other tasks look like
a great diversion from the one task I dont want to do.
Reply
13.
mekpro
September 2, 2015 at 2:12 am
I had read this for 2 minutes and not finished yet because its too early in the
morning. I will start reading through this again when Im arrived office.
Thanks !
Reply
14.
Procrastinator
Written as an escape from another important task? ;D

This was really informative!
Thanks for the read
Reply
15.
Harold Ramus
I started to read your very interesting article that I found via one of my
favorite news aggregators that I like to check between tasks, thank you! I too
suffer from procrastinatory habits. Unfortunately I was unable to finish
reading because a computer task I was waiting on finally completed, then I
started reading another page and then
Reply
16.
Paul
Great article. I have found similar coping measures work well. I can fool
myself that I am not doing something for quit a while. Being rather ADHD
helpsI can do a lot of things, and concentrate on none! I can accomplish a
lot as long as I dont think too hard about it.
Reply
17.
Jan Wedekind
I think good procrastination is about reducing the cognitive load. If you are
overwhelmed by a task it can be because of too many unresolved small
things cluttering your mind.
Reply
18.
Amit
Enjoyable read!
Reply
19.
Kresten Jacobsen
Great article, Im sure. Ill read it later

Reply
20.
Dan
This article, for years, is my guiding light in life! It explained clearly and
exactly what I and alike, are, and how we work. I am a big propagator of the
term and method, and whenever I see a lost soul, I send them to read this.
Thank you!
Reply
21.
Mrtoad
Ive noticed this occur in my life but never took real advantage of it. Funny
article. I will definitely start thinking more about how much I need to clean
my attic so that I can get all my other stuff done.
Reply
22.
Zaraeda
Dear Sir,
I just finished reading your hilarious and insightful book. Thank you for
getting it written! Your ideas have helped me accept my limitations and feel
better about what I do get done. Right now Im procrastinating packing my
suitcase for a trip, meanwhile Ive actually cleaned up a pile of junk in my
backyard which Ive been putting off for months. Thats amazing to me. I
dont like the anxiety around the suitcase issue, but its fun discovering new
ways to motivate myself. One thing you
didnt mention is the possibility of brain chemicals playing a part in getting
one moving. I think thats the case for me sometimes.
Zaraeda
Reply
23.
Jorge Grey
Excellent !
Reply
24.
Thomas Strike
I added my website to reply to this but theres nothing there yet, Ive been
procrastinating. But now I know how to get my blog going.
Thanks much,
Thomas
Reply
Leave a Reply
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Name *
Email *
Website
Comment
Post Comment
Notify me of follow-up comments by email.
Notify me of new posts by email.
Powered by WordPress and Cover
PROCRASTINATION
We've all been plagued by procrastination at one time or another. For some, it's a
chronic problem. Others find that it hits only some areas of their lives. The net results,
though, are usually the same - wasted time, missed opportunities, poor performance,
self-deprecation, or increased stress.
Procrastination is letting the low-priority tasks get in the way of high-priority ones. It's
socializing with colleagues when you know that important work project is due soon,
watching TV instead of doing your household chores, or talking about superficial things
with your partner rather than discussing your relationship concerns.
We all seem to do fine with things we want to do or enjoy doing for fun. But, when we
perceive tasks as difficult, inconvenient, or scary, we may shift into our procrastination
mode. We have very clever ways of fooling ourselves.
CAUSES
Procrastination is a bad habit. Like other habits, there are two general causes. The first
is the "crooked thinking" we employ to justify our behavior. The second source is our
behavioral patterns.
A closer look at our crooked thinking reveals three major issues in delaying tactics perfectionism, inadequacy, and discomfort. Those who believe they must turn in the
most exemplary report may wait until all available resources have been reviewed or
endlessly rewrite draft after draft. Worry over producing the perfect project prevents
them from finishing on time. Feelings of inadequacy can also cause delays. Those who
"know for a fact" that they are incompetent often believe they will fail and will avoid the
unpleasantness of having their skills put to the test. Fear of discomfort is another way of
putting a stop to what needs to be done. Yet, the more we delay, the worse the
discomforting problem (like a toothache) becomes.
Our behavioral patterns are the second cause. Getting started on an unpleasant or
difficult task may seem impossible. Procrastination is likened to the physics concept of
inertia - a mass at rest tends to stay at rest. Greater forces are required to start change
than to sustain change. Another way of viewing it is that avoiding tasks reinforces
procrastination, which makes it harder to get things going. A person may be stuck, too,
not by the lack of desire, but by not knowing what to do. Here are some things to break
the habit. Remember, don't just read them, do them!
If we begin with the notion that procrastination is not the basic "problem" but rather an
attempted "cure" for fears, self-doubts, and dislike of work, then it is obvious that most
procrastinators will have to focus on the real problems--underlying fears, attitudes and
irrational ideas--in order to overcome the procrastinating behavior. After accepting this
idea, the next step was to figure out what the "real" underlying problem was for me. I
started by asking, "Am I a relaxed or a tense procrastinator?" Tense procrastinators
suffer from strong, sometimes mean, internal critics; relaxed procrastinators have
bamboozled their self-critic by denying reality. From this point, each procrastinator must
deal with his/her own unique emotions, skills, thoughts, and unconscious motives.
Types of procrastinators
It may help to think in terms of two fundamental kinds of procrastinators: one tense and
the other relaxed. The tense type often feels both an intense pressure to succeed and a
fear of failure; the relaxed type often feels negatively toward his/her work and blows it
off--forgets it--by playing. The relaxed type neglected schoolwork but not socializing.
This denial-based type of procrastinator avoids as much stress as possible by
dismissing his/her work or disregarding more challenging tasks and concentrating on
"having fun" or some other distracting activity; if their defense mechanisms work
effectively, they actually have what seems like "a happy life" for the moment.
The tense-afraid type of procrastinator is described as feeling overwhelmed by
pressures, unrealistic about time, uncertain about goals, dissatisfied with
accomplishments, indecisive, blaming of others or circumstances for his/her failures,
lacking in confidence and, sometimes, perfectionistic. Thus, the underlying fears are of
failing, lacking ability, being imperfect, and falling short of overly demanding goals. This
type thinks his/her worth is determined by what he/she does, which reflects his/her level
of ability. He/she is afraid of being judged and found wanting. Thus, this kind of
procrastinator will get over-stressed and over-worked until he/she escapes the pressure
temporarily by trying to relax but any enjoyment gives rise to guilt and more
apprehension.
I found that I am the relaxed type of a procrastinator. I let distractions get the better of
me. At first I thought that I was the tense and afraid type of procrastinator, but I have
proved myself wrong.
REMEDIES
The first method I decided to try was the rational self-talk method. Which meant that
those old excuses really don't hold up to rational inspection. I found the so-called "twocolumn technique" and thought it should help. First I began writing down all my excuses
on one side of a piece of paper. Then I try to start challenging the faulty reasoning
behind each of the excuses. Next I wrote down all of my realistic thoughts on the
opposite side of each excuse. Here are two examples of my excuses and my realistic
thoughts.
EXCUSE #1: I'm not in the mood right now. REALISTIC THOUGHT: Mood doesn't do
my work, actions do. If I wait for the right mood, I may never get it done. EXCUSE#2:I'm
just lazy. REALISTIC THOUGHT: Labeling myself as lazy only brings me down. My work
is really separate from who I am as a person. Getting started is the key to finishing.
In conclusion for my positive list of self-statements (my rational self talk) that was
suppose to be self-motivating statements of my repertoire thoughts didn't seem to help
me. So I decided to try another.
My second method was to start setting my priorities. I wrote down all the things that
were needed to be done in order of their importance. The greater the importance or
urgency, the higher their priority. I put "messing around" (distractions) in their proper
places - last! I even started at the top of the list and worked my way down.
In conclusion, I was still putting things off. It helped a little, but still it was hard to avoid
certain distractions. This method did help me realize that I was just putting thing off. It is
not as though I had a low self-esteem about doing things, I was just being lazy.
Then I tried a third method. Praying this method would be the one to stop my
procrastinating, I tried partialilizing my tasks. For the big projects that felt overwhelming
to me, I tried breaking them down into the smallest and most manageable subparts.
You'll get more done if you can do it piece by piece I thought. For example, I made an
outline for a written report before I started composing it. I also found that getting
organized helped tremendously. Having all your materials ready before you begin a task
really does help. I began using a daily schedule and carried it with me all the time. I
listed the tasks of the day or week realistically. I then checked off the tasks when I
completed them.
My prayers were answered; I found that partializing really does work, especially well
with the unpleasant subjects. Most of us can handle duties we dislike as long as they're
for a short time and in small increments.
I then reward myself. I found that self-reinforcement has a powerful effect on developing
a "do it now" attitude. I pat myself on the back, smiled, and let myself enjoy the
completion of even the smallest of tasks. Remember not to minimize your
accomplishments.
Most people have to overcome procrastination gradually. Studying, like drinking, is
usually in binges. Almost no one has trouble studying (a little) the night before a big
exam. But without the pressure of an exam, many students find it easy to forget
studying. I'd suggest breaking big jobs down into manageable tasks and working on
"getting started," perhaps by tricking yourself by saying "I'll just do five minutes" and
then finding out you don't mind working longer than five minutes. I called this the "five
minute plan." The key is to learn the habit of getting started on a task early, i.e. the
procrastinator (myself) needs to learn to initiate well in advance studying and preparing
for papers and exams. Practice starting studying several times every day. As with
exercising, getting in control of starting and making it a routine are the secrets.
Behaviorally, the role of negative reinforcement in procrastination is easy to see, i.e.

some behavior or thought enables a person to escape some unpleasant but necessary
work. That escape--procrastination--is reinforced. (Besides, the pleasure from playing,
partying, and watching TV could easily overwhelm the pleasure from studying.) Each
procrastinator develops his/her own unique combination of escape mechanisms, such
as emotions (fears, resentment, social needs), thoughts (irrational ideas, cognitive
strategies, self-cons), skills and lack of skills, and unconscious motives, perhaps. etc.

The Writing Center: Procrastination

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

The Writing Center: Procrastination

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Writing Center: Procrastination

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Writing Center

Home Handouts Procrastination

Because we are afraid.

Fear of losing autonomy: Some people delay writing projects as a way of

Fear of attachment: Rather than fearing separation, some people procrastinate in

Because we expect ourselves to be perfect.

Because we dont like our writing.

Because were too busy.

How do you procrastinate?

Over- or under-estimate the degree of difficulty that the task involves?

Substitute something important for something really important? (For example,

Spend too much time researching or choosing a topic

Create a productive environment.

Challenge your myths.

Get a new attitude.

Ask for help.

Get an anti-procrastination coach. If you are really determined not to procrastinate,

Make yourself accountable.

Leave your work out.

Work on improving your writing when you dont have a deadline.

When do I usually start on a paper?

What tools do I need (or think I need) in order to write?

Do I like quiet or noise when I write?

How long a block of time do I need?

What do I do before I start?

What do I do at the end?

How do I feel at the end (after I have turned it in)?

What do I like about my writing process?

What do I want to change?

Evaluate your writings strengths and weaknesses.

Hone your proofreading and editing skills.

Learn how to tell time.

Set a time limit.

Be realistic about how long it takes you to write.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialNoDerivs 2.5 License.

Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work.

needs cleaning. People who fail to write novels don't do it by

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert

To thoroughly understand the three classes of people, a more detailed analysis is

Good in a sense, at least. The people who want you to do the

anything. They do it by feeding the cat, going out to buy

When I talk to people who've managed to make themselves

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert

Structured Procrastination Do less. Think more.

Structured Procrastination: Do Less,

. . . anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isnt the work

This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing

procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks,

July 9, 2015 at 7:31 am

Am I just lacking self-deceptive skills?

July 23, 2015 at 2:02 pm

August 4, 2015 at 1:39 pm

I enjoyed your essay on procrastination. I can see clearly now!

September 1, 2015 at 12:33 pm

September 1, 2015 at 1:28 pm

September 1, 2015 at 2:03 pm

This is so dead on. Thanks for writing.