I’m a master procrastinator, and Tim Urban’s Ted Talk on procrastination is phenomenal, hilarious and at least to me SO RELATABLE.

Tim demonstrates the mind of a master procrastinator so well but if you don’t want to watch it (though I recommend you do) he also outlines it here on is website. Generally he boils it down to our monkey brain and our rational brain, and for those of us that are really good at procrastinating the monkey always wins, until a looming deadline comes and causes panic. He also recognizes, that for many this system WORKS, which makes it so hard to stop. I’ve procrastinated all my life and I got straight As through high school, a 7.0 on my undergrad and am now procrastinating my way through a teaching degree, so where is the motivation to stop procrastinating? Seriously, I don’t see it. Cramming and all-nighters can work when you are panicked and fear failure.

However, Tim also goes into the darker side of procrastination, the fact that when there is no deadline to activate the panic response, big goals that we actually care about just don’t get done. I relate to this as well, I start things and never finish them, or I say I’m going to travel but never get started. Is it ADHD or is it just procrastination, or is it both? I’m not sure.

How To ADHD on YouTube goes into some of the reasons we may give into our monkey brain so easily.

She goes over some ways that you can manage procrastination, but also lists some of the many reasons we do procrasinate.

  • boredom
  • anxiety
  • overwhelm
  • hyperfocus on something else
  • fear of success
  • fear of failure
  • perfectionism
  • we don’t care about the task
  • distraction
  • hungry/tired
  • it’s not due yet

So how does she suggest we beat procrastination?

  • Decide what you need to do
  • Break it down into steps
  • Take the next step
  • If you are still procrastinating, figure out why and fix it
  • Get back to work

She also published a follow up video for those whose procrastination is more commonly rooted with anxiety.

So while these videos are super interesting and engaging, I also wanted to see what I could find in the world of academic papers about procrastination (and not just because I’m procrastinating doing other work).

In an article in Current Issues in Personality Psychology (2019) Tibbett and Ferrari conducted a survey of people to look into procrastination, procrastinator identity and regret. They found that those who identify as procrastinators are more likely to procrastinate, and those that procrastinate are more likely to report regrets in their past and experience indecision.

Now I’m not sure how to feel about this, because on one hand, maybe I can positive think my way out of procrastinating, I certainly have regrets about past decisions. On the other hand, if I do have ADHD this study doesn’t really address the core issues of that population.

I don’t know how to stop procrastinating, I think that in researching the topic I have found some good strategies, but it will likely be something I always struggle with.

Personally I think I procrastinate because of distraction, things not being due quickly and perfectionism in that when I don’t work on something up until the second it needs to be handed in I feel like I could have done better no matter the outcome, but in the end I still feel that way because I procrastinate…

Aren’t brains fun?

Tibbett, T. P., & Ferrari, J. R. (2019). Return to the origin: what creates a procrastination identity? Current Issues in Personality Psychology, 7(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.5114/cipp.2018.75648