How to Stop Procrastinating: Why It Happens and What Works

The short answer

Start with one small step: choose something you can finish in five minutes, and decide when and where you’ll do it. Procrastination usually isn’t laziness. Most of the time, you put a task off because of how it makes you feel right now: bored, stuck, unsure where to begin or worried about doing it badly. Putting it off makes that feeling go away for a while, which is why it’s so easy to do again. To make the change last, set up your surroundings so starting is easy, keep a simple routine for the days you don’t feel like it, and when you slip, treat it as information, not proof that something is wrong with you.

This page is about everyday procrastination. If it comes with low mood most days, worry you can't control, or trouble focusing that goes back to childhood, see "When it's more than procrastination" for when to talk to a doctor.

You know the kind of task. The email that has sat in your drafts since Tuesday, the form with a deadline on it, the report, the workout that has moved to tomorrow four days running. Plenty of them wouldn’t take long. But every time you look at one, “not right now” feels better straight away, and by Friday a ten-minute job has turned into days of low-level dread and a few quiet opinions about yourself.

The good news is that you can do something about the dread. Once you know what happens in the moment you put a task off, you can choose a fix that fits, and you’ll know which popular tricks are worth your time. If you’d rather start right now, jump to the ten-minute plan and come back for the why later.

What procrastination is, and isn’t

Not every delay is procrastination. Psychologists use the word for putting off something you meant to do, even though you expect the delay to cost you. Both parts matter: you intended to do it, and you can see that waiting will make things worse.

Plenty of delay is perfectly sensible. You might be waiting for information you don’t have yet, dealing with something more urgent, or spending an evening on the couch after a long day. If waiting doesn’t cost you anything, it isn’t procrastination. Researchers call it strategic delay, and it doesn’t need fixing.

Not true

"People who procrastinate are just lazy."

Putting something off doesn’t mean you don’t care. You can want to finish a task and still struggle to start it. In a large review of the research, the psychologist Piers Steel found that how hard people intended to work had almost nothing to do with how much they procrastinated. People who procrastinate a lot usually plan to work as hard as anyone else. The difference shows up when it’s time to start.

So the useful question is what happens in the few seconds between meaning to and starting.

Why you put things off

Two things are at work in those few seconds: how the task makes you feel, and how far away its reward is.

How the task makes you feel

Tasks that keep getting moved are usually unpleasant in some way. They’re boring, frustrating, hard, pointless or likely to go badly. Unclear tasks are a big one. In one study, students preparing for exams put off about 30 percent of the study sessions they had planned, and the vaguer a task felt, the more likely that session was to be put off. If you can’t picture what to do first, the task is more likely to wait.

Putting the task off makes the bad feeling go away, at least for now. The relief comes immediately, and the cost comes later. Researchers describe procrastination as fixing your mood now at the expense of your future self. And people really do treat their future selves a bit like strangers. In experiments, people signed their future selves up for more of an unpleasant task than they would accept today, much as they did when choosing for someone else.

That doesn’t mean you’re stuck with the feeling. In one trial, people who learned skills for tolerating and changing unpleasant feelings went on to procrastinate less.

How far away the reward is

A reward that’s months away weighs very little against something pleasant right now. The finished course, a fitter body and a clean inbox all feel distant, while a deadline feels heavier the closer it gets. That’s why so much gets done the night before. Being easily distracted makes the pull of right now even stronger, and in Steel’s review, distractibility was strongly and consistently linked to procrastination.

Why it keeps coming back

If putting something off only cost you that one task, it would be a small problem. But a few common patterns make the next delay more likely.

The relief doesn’t last. Putting a task off to feel better now often leaves you feeling worse later: the task is still there, and now you have less time. In one study that followed students through a term, those who procrastinated were less stressed than the others early on and more stressed near the end.

Backfires

"Being hard on yourself keeps you on track."

It can feel like the responsible thing to do. But the task already felt bad, and now there’s self-criticism on top. If you were avoiding the task to escape a bad feeling, that makes it even harder to face. People who procrastinate more also tend to be harder on themselves and more stressed.

All-or-nothing thinking can turn one small miss into a big one. The plan was an hour at the gym. There are only 20 minutes, so the whole session gets skipped. One missed day turns into a ruined week, and the plan restarts on Monday. When the standard is that high, anything less feels like failing, and failing is one more feeling to avoid.

Waiting to feel ready is harder to spot. “I’ll do it when I’m in the right headspace” sounds reasonable, but a task you dread rarely puts you in that headspace ahead of time. I tell the people we coach: if you wait for motivation to show up, you will never show up.

Worrying about doing a task badly also makes it harder to start. High standards on their own aren’t the problem, though. Across dozens of studies, people who worry about mistakes and what others think tend to procrastinate somewhat more, while people who simply aim high tend to procrastinate somewhat less.

What actually helps

You don’t need all seven fixes below to overcome procrastination. Each one starts with the problem it solves, so pick the one that sounds most like you. Most take a few minutes to set up.

Too big or too vague? Shrink the first step

A task you dread is often one you’re picturing all at once, or one with no clear edges, like “sort out my finances”. “Write the report” feels like a mountain. “Open the document and type the headings” is just a step. Choose a first step you can finish in five minutes, even if you still don’t feel like doing it: open the file, put on your gym clothes, find last year’s login. Breaking work into smaller goals that come sooner has helped people procrastinate less in studies going back decades. A small step is less daunting, and the finish line is closer.

Starting small is also how we coach people. You don’t start great. You get great by starting. And on days when even a small step feels like too much, there is always something you can do:

if you can’t get to the gym, go for a walk
if you can’t walk, eat a healthy meal
if you can’t manage that, drink a glass of water

Stuck at the moment of starting? Decide when and where in advance

Deciding in the moment is hard, because that’s when you least feel like starting. So decide ahead of time, and write it down as a when-then plan: “When this happens, I will do that.” For example:

“When I sit down after dinner, I will open the file.”
“When I close my laptop at five, I will put my gym bag by the door.”
If something usually gets in the way, plan for that too: “When I reach for my phone first, I will put it face down and open the file.”

When-then plans have strong evidence behind them. Across hundreds of studies, they helped people follow through on their goals, and they worked best for people who really wanted to reach those goals. The idea is simple: the “when” reminds you, and the decision is already made. A plan can’t make you want something, though, so use it for a goal you actually care about.

Easily distracted? Let your surroundings do some of the deciding

If distraction usually wins, gritting your teeth isn’t the best plan. People with a lot of self-control don’t seem to fight temptation harder. Research on them suggests they spend less effort resisting it, and habits do much of the work. Changing your situation before temptation shows up may work better than fighting it in the moment. Our coaching is built on the same idea: “a good system requires low willpower.” Make the stuff you shouldn’t do harder, and the stuff you should do easier.

In practice, this means small, physical changes. Charge your phone in another room while you work. Leave the laptop open on the document, not your inbox. Keep one spot at the table just for this task. Working in the same place each time is an old fix for procrastination, and it helped in the studies that tested it.

Boring or pointless? Pair it with something you like, or name the point

If a task is boring, make it more pleasant. Pair it with something you enjoy, and save that treat for the task: a podcast you only play while cleaning, or good coffee you only make for paperwork. In one study, people whose gripping audiobooks were only available at the gym went about 50 percent more often in the first weeks, although the effect faded. A much larger study later gave people audiobooks and suggested the same rule. The boost was smaller, around 10 percent, but it lasted for months. That’s a modest gain for one simple rule.

If a task feels pointless, write down why it matters in one line before you start. Not “do the training module”, but “finish the module so it stops hanging over me and I can apply for the new role”. In one diary study, students were more likely to put off a task on days when it felt less worthwhile to them.

Payoff too far away? Bring the future you closer

The person who deals with today’s delay is future you, and future you can feel like someone else. Try asking yourself: how will I feel about this the night before it’s due if I still haven’t started? This is a promising idea, but the evidence for it is still thin. In one trial, students who practiced imagining their future selves felt more connected to them. Whether they procrastinated less depended on how well they could see things from that future self’s point of view.

Hard on yourself after a slip? Go easy instead

Going easy on yourself can feel like letting yourself off the hook. Here, the research and our coaching agree. In a study of first-year students, those who forgave themselves more for putting off studying for their first exam procrastinated less before the second. Feeling less bad about the task seemed to explain the difference. In a separate experiment, students who were reminded to be kind to themselves after doing badly on a test spent longer studying for the next one than students who got no such reminder.

We coach clients to treat a slip the way a scientist treats a result. You’re both the person running the experiment and the person it’s being run on, so a day that didn’t go to plan is useful data. Going easy on yourself doesn’t mean letting things slide. You still look at what happened, change one thing and try again.

Tell someone what you’ll do and when

It’s easier to put off a task when nobody is waiting for it. When I was in school, I trained with Mike, who went on to start Gains For Gamers with me. There were afternoons when I’d rather have gone home and played World of Warcraft. I went anyway, because Mike always showed up, and I know I had the same effect on him.

You don’t need a training partner for everything. One person is enough: share your plan, then tell them afterward whether you did it. Tracking progress helps people reach their goals, especially when they share it with someone or write it down.

The popular tricks, checked

A lot of procrastination advice comes packaged as a named trick. Some are versions of the fixes above with a catchier name. Others have never really been tested.

Popular procrastination tricks, and what the evidence says

The trick	What the evidence says
The two-minute rule, as James Clear popularized it: shrink any task to a two-minute version and start that	We couldn’t find a study of this rule on its own. But it makes the first step smaller, and smaller, closer goals do help, so it’s a sound idea with a catchy name.
The Pomodoro technique: about 25 minutes of work, then a 5-minute break	The evidence is mixed. In one small study, students with fixed breaks felt less tired and more focused than students who chose their own breaks. In a newer study of 176 students, with shorter 12-minute blocks, the students who chose their own breaks reported better mood and concentration. Neither study found a clear difference in how much students got done or learned. Try it, and keep it if the breaks help rather than break your flow.
The 5 second rule from Mel Robbins, or the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 rule: count down from five and move before you talk yourself out of it	No study we know of has tested the countdown. It may work like a when-then plan, by getting you moving before you can talk yourself out of it. But that’s a guess, not a finding.
Eat the frog: do your worst task first thing	We know of no study testing it. Our coaching uses a different rule for where to start. We ask clients which area of their health is the biggest issue: eating, training or mindset. If more than one is, we start with the one that will build the most momentum, which isn’t always the hardest or the biggest.
Structured procrastination: dodge the big task by doing other useful ones	This idea comes from an essay, not a study. You’ll get useful things done, but the task you were dodging will still be waiting.
More willpower: willpower is a tank that runs out, so save it	This idea hasn’t held up well. Two large attempts to repeat the original experiments, across dozens of labs, found little or no effect.

The next step is to make the approach you choose part of a routine you can repeat.

When motivation doesn’t show up

Some days, motivation just won’t show up. What gets you through those days is mostly what you set up on better ones.

A bar low enough to clear on a bad day. It’s easy to start with too much, too soon. Aim for two or three workouts a week instead of six, or 20 minutes on the project instead of a whole evening. Clearing a low bar feels good. Missing a high one once motivation fades feels crap.
80 percent, not 100. I’d much rather see someone stick to 80 percent of their plan every month than hit 100 percent in the first month and drop to 20 percent in the next two.
A schedule instead of a feeling. Do the task at the same time and in the same place, so it happens because it’s Tuesday at seven, not because you feel like it. Repeating something in the same setting helps it become more automatic over time.
A rule for the day after a miss. Decide now what happens after a missed day: you do the next planned session as normal, without trying to make up for the one you missed. In a study of people building a new daily habit, missing one day made no real difference to how the habit formed.
A check-in once a week, without judgment. Spend five minutes writing answers to the three questions our clients use at their monthly check-in: What could I have done better? What is working? What is not? Then change one thing. As we tell clients: “I either win, or learn.”

None of this is exciting, and it isn’t supposed to be. A system that asks very little of you is easier to keep going.

When it’s more than procrastination

Almost everyone procrastinates. For most people it’s the everyday kind, but roughly 15 to 20 percent of adults say it’s a chronic problem. Sometimes putting things off is part of something that needs more help than an article can give.

Procrastination often goes along with stress, low mood and anxiety. With stress, at least, each seems to make the other worse. In a large study of university students in Sweden, those who procrastinated more had somewhat more symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress nine months later, along with poorer sleep and less exercise. That doesn’t prove procrastination caused those problems. It also doesn’t mean putting things off is a sign you have them. Talk to a doctor or a mental health professional if:

you’ve felt low or hopeless, or lost interest in things, for most of the day, every day, for more than two weeks
worry is hard to control and is getting in the way of your daily life
you’ve been easily distracted, forgetful and struggling to organize your time or finish tasks since childhood, and it gets in the way of your studies, your work or your relationships
putting things off is seriously hurting your work, your studies, your money or your health, and nothing you’ve tried has helped

If procrastination has become that kind of problem, help is available. Only a few treatments have been tested, and the studies are still small, but structured programs based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a practical form of talking therapy, have shown the best results so far.

If you ever have thoughts of harming yourself, don’t wait for an appointment: contact your local emergency number or a crisis line now, such as 988 in the US or Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland.

What we see with clients

Most people who come to us to get in shape have tried before, often more than once. What stopped them usually looks a lot like procrastination: waiting for the right moment, following a plan built for someone else’s life, or letting one bad day turn into a full collapse.

Chloe, one of our clients, had recently had a baby. Her problem wasn’t motivation. Between her job, her family, the groceries, the laundry, the dishes and the house, there was never a good moment, and underneath it all was constant guilt that she wasn’t doing enough for herself. Four months in, she was down 11 kilos (about 24 lb). But what she values most is that she no longer obsesses over food, isn’t stuck in all-or-nothing mode, and looking after her health feels like a normal part of life rather than a daily battle.

In our coaching, that shift starts with a first step small enough for a bad day, a plan that fits the week someone actually has, and check-ins without judgment. If you’d like a coach to build that around your week, for your training and eating, that’s what we do at Gains For Gamers.

A ten-minute plan for today

Or start on your own today. You need ten minutes, one task you’ve been putting off and something to write on. Answer each line for your task. The right column shows an example for a tax form that’s been put off for three weeks.

A ten-minute plan for one task, with a worked example

Write down	An example: the tax form
1. The task. One thing you’ve put off for a week or more.	The tax form, due at the end of the month.
2. The feeling. Is it boring, pointless or confusing, or are you worried it will go badly? If it’s boring or pointless, pair it with something you enjoy or write down why it matters. If it’s confusing or you’re worried, make step 3 smaller.	Unsure where to start, and a bit worried about what I’ll owe.
3. A five-minute first step. Something specific you can picture yourself doing.	Find last year’s login and open the site. That’s all.
4. When and where, as “When I…, I will…”	When I sit down with a coffee after dinner on Wednesday, I will open the tax site at the kitchen table.
5. One change to your surroundings. Something that makes starting easier or the distraction harder to reach.	Phone charging in the hall; last year’s letter left on top of the laptop.
6. The rule for a missed day. When you’ll try again, and how much you’ll do.	If Wednesday slips, the same five minutes on Thursday. No catching up.
7. The check-in. Five minutes on Sunday.	What could I have done better? What is working? What is not?

Then take the first step when your plan says to. It’s supposed to feel almost too small to count. That’s what makes it hard to put off.

When you catch yourself putting something off, make the first step small enough to start today.

Questions we get asked

How do I train myself to stop procrastinating?

Practice starting instead of waiting to feel ready. Do the task at the same time and in the same place, keep the first step small enough for a bad day, and decide in advance what happens after a missed day. Repeating something in the same setting helps it become more automatic. A five-minute check-in each week shows you what to change next.

What are the signs of chronic procrastination?

Chronic procrastination isn’t an official diagnosis. The term describes putting things off as an ongoing pattern, not just now and then. Researchers have proposed signs of a more serious problem: over six months, you put off very important tasks for no good reason on at least half of days, and it gets badly in the way of your goals. You also have at least two of these: much of your time is lost to it, plans get finished only in a rush or not at all, it causes physical or emotional strain, or you perform well below what you’re capable of. If that sounds like you, talk to a doctor or a mental health professional.

Is procrastination a sign of ADHD?

Not on its own. Adults with more ADHD symptoms do tend to procrastinate more, but far more people procrastinate than have ADHD. Depending on how it’s counted, ADHD affects roughly 3 to 7 percent of adults. Its symptoms, such as being easily distracted or forgetful and finding it hard to organize your time or finish tasks, usually start before age 12. If they get in the way of your studies, work or relationships, a doctor can arrange a proper assessment.

Does Adderall help with procrastination?

That’s a question for a doctor, not for us. Whether Adderall or any other medicine could help you depends on a proper assessment.

What tools can help me stop procrastinating?

Apps and timers can help with one part of a plan. Use a calendar reminder for your when-then plan, a timer for focused work, or a website blocker to change your surroundings. Choose a small first step, then use a tool to help you follow through.

How do I stop putting off workouts?

The same way as anything else: make the start small and decide it in advance. Aim for two or three sessions a week, and make the first move tiny, such as “When I get home on Monday and put my bag down, I will change into my gym clothes.” Lay the clothes out that morning, and count ten minutes of anything, even a walk. If you miss a session, do the next one as planned, even if it’s only ten minutes.

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This page is by Daniel, founder and head coach at Gains For Gamers. We’re coaches who game. Every article is written from the research and read by a coach before it goes up; here is how we do that.

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This page is general information from coaches, not medical or psychological advice. If you think you may have depression, anxiety, ADHD or another condition, or you're finding it hard to cope, talk to your doctor or a mental health professional. If you have a medical condition or an injury, or take medication, talk to your doctor before you change your training.

How to stop procrastinating, and why it keeps happening