Why do I procrastinate? Fuschia Sirois on the feeling you avoid

Why do I procrastinate? Most often because the task in front of you stirs up a feeling you'd rather not have, such as boredom, frustration, self-doubt or anxiety, and putting it off makes that feeling lift at once. The relief is real, and it rewards the delay, which is why the habit sticks. Psychologists call this short-term mood repair, and the American Psychological Association's dictionary now describes it the same way: people avoid the negative emotions attached to a task more than the task itself.

Fuschia Sirois, a psychology professor at Durham University, has spent more than 20 years on the causes and consequences of procrastination (APA, Speaking of Psychology), and in 2013 she and Tim Pychyl of Carleton University set out the mood-repair account in a review (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013). She still procrastinates. "I'm human so yeah, I do procrastinate," she told Adam Grant, describing a paper that grows in her head into something huge until, a couple of days later, she names what she's doing and gets on with it (WorkLife with Adam Grant).

Why do I procrastinate even when I want to get it done?

The tasks people put off share a profile: boring, frustrating, lacking meaning or lacking structure, in Sirois and Pychyl's description (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013). But "it doesn't have to be objectively an unpleasant task," Sirois told the APA's podcast; what counts is the feeling that comes out of your meeting with it (Speaking of Psychology). A presentation can be routine for one person and a source of dread for someone who thinks a promotion rides on it.

What happens next is a loop.

1. A task stirs up a feeling. It can sit anywhere on the range Sirois describes, from "simply boring" to "gut wrenching": frustration, self-doubt, fear of failure, anxiety (Speaking of Psychology).
2. Putting it off lifts the feeling at once. "You put that task aside, and you've just regulated your mood. Now you feel better," Sirois told Grant (WorkLife). The kitchen gets cleaned or the phone comes out, and for a while you feel fine.
3. The relief teaches the habit. "The problem with that is it's immediately reinforcing," Sirois says. That's how some people slide into procrastination as their usual way of handling unpleasant tasks (Speaking of Psychology).
4. Your future self gets the bill. We tell ourselves we'll feel more like it tomorrow, as if tomorrow's self will cope better. "The future self becomes the beast of burden for procrastination," Sirois told the APS Observer. That self has the same feelings to manage, with less time.

How to deal with the feeling first

If a feeling starts the loop, the fix starts there too. Sirois's advice follows a clear order: probe the emotion, work out where it comes from, then act on that (Deep Dive). As three questions, it fits into the moment you catch yourself reaching for your phone.

1. What am I feeling right now?

Name it in a word or two. If words don't come, use the DUST check from productivity author Graham Allcott, described by Anne-Laure Le Cunff of Ness Labs: is the task difficult, unclear, scary or tedious? Le Cunff suggests reading procrastination as information about what you're struggling with (Ness Labs).

2. Is it coming from the task, or from me?

This is Sirois's central question. Some tasks are what she calls "procrastinogenic", tasks "that don't give you autonomy, that lack structure, and that are ambiguous" (WorkLife). If the task is too big, too vague or unstructured, change the task: ask someone to lay it out, cut it into small pieces, or find what makes it worth doing (Deep Dive). "You've got to dig a little deeper and find some personal meaning in that task," she told the APS Observer. If the feeling comes from you, as old doubts or fear of getting it wrong, the change is in how you talk to yourself.

Adam Grant's books show what changing the task can look like. He calls himself a precrastinator, someone who starts early (WorkLife), yet he puts off editing because tinkering with sentences bores him. He made it interesting again by rewriting paragraphs in the voices of his favorite authors (The Diary of a CEO).

3. What's a start small enough to make right now?

Pychyl's advice is to let motivation follow action (Deep Dive). In his pager studies, a dreaded task felt less stressful once students had begun it (Pychyl, Just get started). So pick something you can do in a few minutes: open the file, write one line, make the call.

"To the extent that I can deal with my emotions, I can stay on task."

Tim Pychyl, in the APS Observer

The 1h Protocol to Stop Procrastinating starts from the same idea: its first questions work out which obstacle is behind your delay before it suggests a first step.

Is procrastination a time-management problem?

Two experiments involving the psychologist Dianne Tice show what's going on instead. In one, from 2001, she and her colleagues manipulated students' moods, then gave them time to practice for an intelligence test. Students who thought their mood could change, especially those in a bad mood, put off practicing until about the final minute; students led to believe their mood was frozen didn't procrastinate (APS Observer; Tice et al., 2001). When people are upset, the authors concluded, feeling better in the short term takes priority over their other goals.

In another, Tice and Joseph Ferrari told students they would do a maths puzzle at the end of a lab session, with time beforehand to practice or to play games such as Tetris. Chronic procrastinators put off practicing only when the puzzle was described as a test of their cognitive abilities. When it was described as meaningless fun, they behaved like everyone else (APS Observer). The only thing that differed between the two versions was the threat of being judged.

"When we procrastinate, we're not avoiding the task, we're avoiding the negative emotions associated with that task."

Fuschia Sirois, on Your Parenting Mojo

Laziness doesn't fit the evidence either. Sirois points out that some chronic procrastinators have the neatest houses, with the dishes done and everything organized, while the big task waits (WorkLife). Our guide to what procrastination means covers why "lazy" is the wrong label.

Procrastination and anxiety: a cycle that runs both ways

Anxiety is one of the feelings that can start the loop, and stress feeds it from both ends. In Sirois's account, ongoing stress uses up the coping you'd normally bring to a hard task and makes unpleasant feelings harder to sit with, so delay becomes the easy way out. It runs the other way too: in a nine-month study of Swedish university students, those who procrastinated more at the start reported more stress at the end, even allowing for how stressed they were to begin with (Sirois, 2023).

Guilt adds another turn. Sirois and Pychyl note that the bad mood also comes from looking back at past delays and judging yourself for them, which gives the next delay more to escape from (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013). Our article on procrastination guilt covers how to break that part.

Then there's the forecast. Before we start, we picture the task feeling worse, and for longer, than it will. Sirois calls this making "emotional mountains out of molehills," and ties it to research showing that people are poor at predicting their own future feelings (Speaking of Psychology). We also forget the ways we cope, like humor or calling a friend, which make hard moments milder than we imagine (Deep Dive).

If the feeling behind your delays is a low mood or a worry that won't lift, or the delays are hurting your work or relationships, see a GP or counselor about it.

Why do I procrastinate on things I enjoy?

Sirois points out that nobody procrastinates on things that feel like fun (Deep Dive). So when you keep putting off something you love, look for the feeling hiding inside it.

• The project has become a verdict on you, like the puzzle in the Tice and Ferrari study.
• You feel two things at once. Sirois describes being excited about a task and nervous about it at the same time (Deep Dive).
• The enjoyment has faded. In her studies, people prone to procrastination found their goals less enjoyable, especially with a tempting alternative nearby (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013).
• The version in your head is perfect. Until you start, the finished thing stays flawless; starting means meeting the bumps (Speaking of Psychology).

The question to ask next time

The next time you notice your hand going to your phone with a task open, ask Sirois's question: is this feeling coming from the task, or from me? If it's the task, change the task. If it's you, change what you say to yourself, then take the smallest step you can. For a full plan built around the start itself, see how to stop procrastinating.

The free part of the 1h Protocol to Stop Procrastinating asks a few questions about the task you keep putting off, names the pattern behind it and gives you one first step. Start free

Frequently asked questions

Why do I procrastinate so much?

Usually because your tasks stir up feelings you want to avoid, such as boredom, frustration or self-doubt, and putting them off brings quick relief that rewards the habit. You're far from alone: Fuschia Sirois estimates that 15 to 25% of adults procrastinate chronically (APA, Speaking of Psychology).

Is procrastination caused by anxiety?

Anxiety is one of the feelings that can trigger it, along with boredom and self-doubt. The link runs both ways: delay brings relief now and more stress later. If worry or low mood is there most of the time, talk to a GP or counselor.

Is procrastination a time management problem?

Rarely. Fuschia Sirois and Tim Pychyl describe it as a way of managing mood (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013), and Sirois reads the evidence on time-management fixes as mixed at best and short-lived. Planning tools work better once you've dealt with the feeling behind the delay.

What happens in the brain when you procrastinate?

The research is early and mostly correlational. Fuschia Sirois describes imaging studies suggesting that the amygdala, the brain's threat-detection area, differs in people prone to procrastination, which fits a greater sensitivity to negative emotions (Deep Dive). A student survey linked procrastination with self-reported problems in planning, starting tasks and controlling emotions (APS Observer).

Why do I procrastinate on things I enjoy?

Something in the task has stopped feeling like fun. It may now feel like a verdict on your ability, bring excitement and nerves at once, or have lost its enjoyment partway through. Working out which tells you what to change.

Sources

This article draws on Fuschia Sirois and Tim Pychyl's published research and on interviews Sirois gave to podcasts from the APA, TED and others.

• Sirois & Pychyl, Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood regulation (peer-reviewed theoretical review, 2013)
• APA Dictionary of Psychology, Procrastination (professional reference entry, updated 2026)
• Speaking of Psychology 210, Fuschia Sirois: Why we procrastinate and what to do about it (APA podcast episode, 2022)
• WorkLife with Adam Grant: The real reason you procrastinate (TED podcast episode with Fuschia Sirois, 2020)
• Your Parenting Mojo 170, Fuschia Sirois: How to stop procrastinating (podcast episode, 2022)
• Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal, Fuschia Sirois: The procrastination trap (podcast episode, 2023)
• APS Observer, Why wait? The science behind procrastination (professional-association magazine article, 2013)
• Tice, Bratslavsky & Baumeister, Emotional distress regulation takes precedence over impulse control (three laboratory experiments, 2001)
• Sirois, Procrastination and stress: a conceptual review of why context matters (peer-reviewed conceptual review, 2023)
• Adam Grant, Procrastination is not a time management problem (LinkedIn post, 2025)
• Anne-Laure Le Cunff, Why we wait: understanding the emotions behind procrastination (Ness Labs article, 2023)
• The Diary of a CEO, Adam Grant on procrastination, perfectionism and happiness (podcast episode, 2024)
• Timothy Pychyl, Just get started (researcher's blog article, Psychology Today, 2008)
• Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal, Tim Pychyl: How to solve procrastination (podcast episode, 2022)