What’s Really Driving Your Procrastination and How to Beat It

Keith GunderKline knew he should get started on that five-year capital improvement plan for the Ohio housing agency he directs. Then again, his inbox was filling up. A staffer needed help redesigning a form. Oh, and the air conditioning in one of the agency’s buildings had conked out and needed to be fixed.

“I didn’t have to get to that today,” the 69-year-old would reason as he put off the intimidating report for months, grateful to focus on the daily diversions.

Administrative busywork, last-minute emergencies and the performative theater of another useless Zoom call so often clog our calendars. We spend nearly a third more time communicating with others than creating things at work, according to a recent analysis of meetings, email and document usage from Microsoft.

We complain we’re so tired, or too busy, with no time to do the job. Yet part of us is surely relieved there’s no time to tackle that presentation that would level-up our career, or the book we’ve always wanted to write. Examined up close, the goal is terrifying, overwhelming, amorphous. Where do you even start?

Looking important at work often comes down to moving through the office in a frenzy, says Juliet Funt, author of a book about carving out space for creativity and reflection in the workday. Meetings are social, and our attendance is proof that we’re needed. Hybrid schedules mean many of us desperately want to be cc’ed on that email, so we’re top of mind even when we’re out of sight. And there’s a high that comes with checking infinite teeny items off our to-do lists.

“If we fail in little busy activities, we fail small,” says Funt. We’ve lost our tolerance for diving into the big stuff, she adds. “Open time freaks us out.”

To get back to the important things languishing at the bottom of your to-do list, create your own accountability. Funt recommends setting a timer for five minutes to get started on the thing you’re dreading. Each morning, write your three to five most important tasks on a piece of paper and keep it on your desk, returning to it whenever you have free time.

Imaginary perfection

We often procrastinate when we’re not confident we can deliver. A project that stays in our mind can stay picture-perfect.

“It’s easier to keep it imaginary,” says Fuschia Sirois, a psychology professor at England’s Durham University who studies procrastination. 

Make it more tangible by putting up Post-it Notes or pictures in your office that represent your dream, she suggests. Picture yourself at the finish line, and the steps it would take to get there. Then remind yourself why the goal matters. 

In a study from Sirois and a colleague, a group of participants reflected on how a task was meaningful to their personal growth or someone they cared about. They ended up procrastinating less than people who simply focused on a positive part of the task.

The cost of procrastination

After being laid off in 2020, Jeff Krimmel landed a new job quickly. But his big goal of expanding his professional network stayed on the back burner for years. 

“It was just the enormity of, what does that even mean?” says Krimmel, a chief strategy officer in Houston. He pictured attending weekly networking mixers after work or asking strangers to lunch—and felt overwhelmed, convinced it would never work with two young kids and a long commute.

To motivate himself, he thought about what would happen if he never built a network. He remembered how vulnerable he felt when he was laid off. He pictured how another career disruption would impact his family if he didn’t have robust connections to fall back on.

“That cost just wasn’t bearable any more to me,” he says. 

Last summer, he committed to posting on LinkedIn every day. Maintaining a streak keeps guilt from bubbling up, he says, and forces him to do something, even if it’s not perfect. Metrics, like seeing how many people view his posts, act as markers to his progress.

A task that fits your mood

Nearly everything can be broken down into smaller pieces. At work on a book, Stephanie Kramer

After a long day in meetings for her day job, quietly writing down the themes of an upcoming chapter helped her reset. If she felt sluggish, sorting and deleting book-related emails jump-started her.

On Friday nights, after her two young sons were in bed, she’d work late on deep, creative work. 

“I felt very free,” she says, “like I was in this magic zone.”

Something’s off

Sometimes procrastination is a signal you need to do something differently. Ask yourself why you’re really putting a goal off. Is it too aggressive? Is the timeline too fast or too slow? Do you need help from a peer to get started?

Drew Bear, a tech worker in San Diego, was excited to start a podcast about the intersection of faith and business. But the first episode took him 30 hours to produce. He obsessively searched for software to speed up the process. Then he stalled completely. 

After months of procrastinating, he realized the payoff didn’t feel worth the effort. He only had about 40 subscribers. He decided to pivot to YouTube videos, where he thinks he’ll reach more people.

There’s some shame in the fact that his initial plan failed, the 35-year-old says. But he’s focused on his new path forward. 

“When you do something you’ve never done,” he says, “it’s always harder than you expect.”

Write to Rachel Feintzeig at [email protected] 

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