Procrastination meaning: what it is, and what it isn't

Procrastination means putting off something you intended to do, by choice and without needing to, even though you expect to be worse off for the delay. The American Psychological Association's dictionary defines it as "the unnecessary and voluntary delay of intended tasks despite awareness of potential negative consequences for oneself or others" (APA Dictionary of Psychology). Researchers use this narrow meaning, and plenty of delays don't fit it.

Joseph Ferrari, a psychology professor at DePaul University in Chicago, explains the difference with a to-do list. "If I have a dozen things to do, obviously #10, #11, and #12 have to wait," he told the Association for Psychological Science. The real procrastinator, in his telling, has the same twelve things, does one or two, "then rewrites the list, then shuffles it around, then makes an extra copy of it" (APS Observer). The first person is prioritizing; only the second is procrastinating.

Piers Steel, a professor at the University of Calgary's Haskayne School of Business (Pearson), boils the definition down to "putting off despite expecting to be worse off" (Steel). One of Ferrari's favorite sayings separates the act from the habit.

"Everyone procrastinates, but not everyone is a procrastinator." Joseph Ferrari, American Psychological Association

Procrastination meaning: the definition in three questions

Steel, Ferrari and the APA word it differently, but their definitions share three parts, and each part works as a question about the task you're avoiding.

1. Did you intend to do it?

Procrastination is about tasks you've committed to. Fuschia Sirois, a researcher at Durham University, gives two everyday examples: saying you'll clean out the garage this weekend, or write that report by Friday (Speaking of Psychology). Tim Pychyl of Carleton University adds a twist: a vague intention such as "I'll do it at the weekend" can itself be a way of procrastinating, and only you know what you intended (Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal, 44:16).

2. Was the delay voluntary and unnecessary?

Ferrari's example: if your plane is stuck on the tarmac and you arrive four hours late, you didn't procrastinate (The Mel Robbins Podcast, 03:22). Pychyl names other delays that don't count. There's purposeful delay, when you choose a better time; inevitable delay, like an internet outage; and delay caused by emotional upheaval. When his father died in 2016, his world stopped for a while and things didn't get done, and nobody called it procrastination (Deep Dive, 03:32).

Voluntary doesn't have to mean deliberate, though. The Put Off Procrastinating workbook from the Center for Clinical Interventions notes that the decision can happen so fast it feels like a habit, and you may not realize you've made it (CCI).

3. Do you expect to be worse off?

This part is what makes procrastination irrational. Steel's fuller definition is "to voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay" (Steel, 2010). If waiting is the better choice, it's planning: Ferrari says that organizing your tasks around deadlines is prioritizing, and he won't call it procrastinating (Ferrari, Psychology Today). Pychyl's reason for keeping these apart is practical: with only one word for every kind of delay, we end up beating ourselves up over delays that were sensible (Deep Dive, 03:32).

Say your tax return is due. You planned to do it on Saturday, you had the time, and you knew a late penalty was coming, but you reorganised the kitchen instead. That's procrastination. If you waited because a form from your employer hadn't arrived, it's ordinary delay.

When one task gets three yeses week after week, that's the task the free part of the 1h Protocol to Stop Procrastinating starts from: its questions find the obstacle behind the task you keep putting off.

Is procrastination laziness? What it isn't

It isn't laziness

The CCI workbook is blunt: procrastination "has nothing to do with being lazy" (CCI). People who procrastinate are rarely idle. "It's not like procrastinators are sitting around lazy, they're doing other things," Sirois says (Speaking of Psychology). Ferrari's list-rewriter, shuffling and copying, is hardly idle.

Ferrari adds that for chronic procrastinators "it is not a time management issue" (APA); what people tend to avoid is the anxiety, frustration or boredom a task stirs up (APA Dictionary of Psychology), and why do I procrastinate explains how that works.

It isn't a personality type

Ferrari's early work split procrastinators into three types: arousal procrastinators, who delay for the thrill of a deadline; avoiders, who delay to protect their self-esteem or out of fear of failure; and decisional procrastinators, who put off decisions. When Steel tested the model in 2010, pooling earlier studies with a large international survey, the evidence didn't support the three types, especially the split between arousal and avoidance; one general factor explained most of the differences (Steel, 2010). Asked in 2023 whether there are different types of procrastinator, Ferrari replied, "The answer is no," though he still separates putting off actions from putting off decisions (The Mel Robbins Podcast, 27:52).

It isn't a productivity strategy

In 2005, Angela Chu and Jin Nam Choi described "active procrastinators", who prefer working under pressure and decide to delay (Chu & Choi, 2005). When Shamarukh Chowdhury and Tim Pychyl re-examined the idea in 2018, they concluded it lacked procrastination's defining features and was better described as deliberate, purposeful delay (Chowdhury & Pychyl, 2018). Sirois puts it more directly: "There is no such thing as active procrastination" (Your Parenting Mojo, 29:45).

A planned pause is a different thing. In experiments by Jihae Shin and Adam Grant, people tempted into a moderate delay on an ideas task came up with more creative ideas, although in their workplace study procrastination also went with lower efficiency (Shin & Grant, 2021). Steel calls a pause like that incubation, and it depends on having started: "for incubation to work, you start early, get really familiar with the project and then take a break" (Steel).

When does procrastination become a problem?

Two things decide it: how far it spreads through your life, and what it's costing you.

Occasional or chronic?

Sirois separates situational procrastination, in one area of life or now and then (someone efficient at work who keeps putting off exercise, say), from chronic procrastination, which is frequent, spreads across many situations and starts to look like a personality trait (Your Parenting Mojo, 03:18). Ferrari's chronic procrastinators "delay at home, work, school and in relationships" (APA).

Estimates of how common that is cluster around one adult in five. Ferrari reported in 2010 that 20% of US men and women are chronic procrastinators (APA), and says he has since found about 20% in countries including Britain, Japan and Peru (The Mel Robbins Podcast, 10:25). Sirois estimates 15 to 25% of adults (Speaking of Psychology). These are self-reported, and the exact figure depends on how you measure.

What is it costing you?

The CCI workbook draws the line between ordinary putting off and a real problem at how bad the consequences are (CCI). In a large representative survey in Germany, procrastination was highest among 14- to 29-year-olds, and it went with more stress, low mood, anxiety and tiredness, and lower satisfaction with life, especially with work and income (Beutel et al, 2016). That's a link, not proof that procrastination caused them. Steel's own reading of the research is that procrastinators "are often less happy, less healthy, less wealthy and usually just plain less" (Steel).

When the cost turns serious, at work, in your mood or in your relationships, it's time to talk it over with a doctor or counselor (UMD Counseling Center).

Was it a decision not to act?

Ferrari's own summary is short: "Procrastination is not waiting and it is more than delaying. It is a decision to not act" (APA). So before you call yourself a procrastinator, ask whether you decided not to act on something you meant to do, knowing you'd pay for it later. If the answer is no, you delayed, and there's nothing to fix. If it's yes, our guide on how to stop procrastinating has seven steps from the research.

Or begin with that one task: the free first chapter of the 1h Protocol to Stop Procrastinating names the obstacle behind it and gives you one first step. Start free

Frequently asked questions

What does procrastination mean?

Procrastination means voluntarily delaying a task you intended to do, when you don't need to, even though you expect to be worse off for it. The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines it as the unnecessary and voluntary delay of intended tasks despite awareness of the negative consequences. The word comes from the Latin procrastinare, "to put off or postpone until another day" (Shin & Grant, 2021).

Is procrastination the same as laziness?

No. A clinical self-help workbook says procrastination "has nothing to do with being lazy", and people who procrastinate are usually busy doing something else, from tidying the kitchen to rewriting their to-do list.

How common is procrastination?

Everyone puts things off sometimes, but researchers estimate that about one adult in five does it chronically. Joseph Ferrari puts it at 20% of US adults, and Fuschia Sirois estimates 15 to 25% of adults and about half of university students (Speaking of Psychology). The figures are self-reported, so read them as estimates rather than exact counts.

Is procrastination a sign of something else?

Putting things off is a common part of human behavior, and everyone does it sometimes (CCI). Surveys link frequent procrastination with more stress, low mood and anxiety, but they can't show which causes which. If putting things off comes with persistent low mood, constant worry or trouble focusing that affects most of your life, talk to a GP or a qualified professional.

Are there different types of procrastination?

Researchers distinguish situational procrastination, in one area of life or now and then, from chronic procrastination, which is frequent and spreads across many areas. The popular split into arousal, avoidant and decisional procrastinators wasn't supported when Piers Steel tested it in 2010, and "active procrastination" hasn't held up either.

Can procrastination ever be good?

Sensible delay, such as choosing a better time or pausing mid-task to let ideas incubate, doesn't meet the definition of procrastination. In one set of studies, a moderate delay during an ideas task produced more creative ideas, but at work procrastination went with lower efficiency. In Joseph Ferrari's lab, procrastinators under time pressure made more errors while believing they had done better.

Sources

This article draws on Piers Steel's research papers, book and essay, Joseph Ferrari's interviews and writing, and the studies, definitions and public guidance listed below.

• APA Dictionary of Psychology, Procrastination (professional dictionary entry, updated 2026)
• American Psychological Association, Psychology of procrastination: five questions for Joseph Ferrari (press release interview, 2010)
• Eric Jaffe, Why Wait? The Science Behind Procrastination (APS Observer research feature, 2013)
• Piers Steel, The Procrastination Equation (book, publisher page, 2nd edition, 2011)
• Piers Steel, The Original Myth: Procrastination as a Source of Creativity (researcher's essay, 2016)
• Steel, Arousal, avoidant and decisional procrastinators: do they exist? (meta-analysis and survey of 4,169 people, Personality and Individual Differences, 2010)
• Joseph Ferrari, Don't Believe All You Hear About Procrastination (researcher's blog post, Psychology Today, 2021)
• The Mel Robbins Podcast 127: Joseph Ferrari, How to stop procrastinating (podcast episode, 2023)
• Shin & Grant, When putting work off pays off: the curvilinear relationship between procrastination and creativity (two experiments and a field study, Academy of Management Journal, 2021)
• Speaking of Psychology 210: Fuschia Sirois, Why we procrastinate and what to do about it (podcast episode, American Psychological Association, 2022)
• Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal, S3 E11: Tim Pychyl, How to solve procrastination (podcast episode, 2022)
• Centre for Clinical Interventions, Put Off Procrastinating (clinical self-help workbook, Government of Western Australia)
• University of Maryland Counseling Center, Time management & procrastination (university counselling guidance)
• Chu & Choi, Rethinking procrastination: positive effects of "active" procrastination behavior on attitudes and performance (correlational study, Journal of Social Psychology, 2005; abstract)
• Chowdhury & Pychyl, A critique of the construct validity of active procrastination (validity study, Personality and Individual Differences, 2018; abstract)
• Your Parenting Mojo 170: Fuschia Sirois, How to stop procrastinating (podcast episode, 2022)
• Beutel et al, Procrastination, distress and life satisfaction across the age range (representative German survey of 2,527 people, PLOS ONE, 2016)