“Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.”

This quote from personal success expert Napoleon Hill nicely sums up the problem of procrastination, or putting off or delaying doing something that should be done right away. For many people procrastination becomes a habit, causing them to constantly be late, miss deadlines or fail to complete tasks.

Procrastination leads to stress, and can also put office relationships at risk and lead to frustration for both the procrastinator and his or her colleagues who have to constantly deal with the fallout from this bad habit.

Procrastination vs laziness

Procrastination is not laziness. In fact, as it is done with intent it can be quite draining for the procrastinator, who constantly finds reasons or ways to avoid a specific task. Emotions are often at the root of the problem.

Possible reasons why people procrastinate

    • They don’t know where to start. The task could seem overwhelming or could be so vast that the starting point seems unclear.
    • They find the task tedious. The task may be uninteresting or unchallenging, just so boring that they can’t face tackling it.
    • They fear failure. They feel they are not up to the task; that they are in way over their heads. They believe they are not good enough to do the task successfully.
    • They are perfectionists. Perfectionists have very high standards and expectations. They may feel that they cannot do the task perfectly, so they would rather not do it at all than do it badly.
    • They associate the task with something negative. The task could be up for review by a more senior colleague whom they do not get along with or whose criticism they fear, or serve to remind them of a previous failure on a similar task.

What to do about it

If you tend to procrastinate and want to do something about it, contact our Employee Wellbeing Programme (EAP). We can help.