I should read more about procrastination. Maybe tomorrow.

You’ve been there: you need to complete a project, submit a report, or document your code. You know how important all these tasks are, but you can’t find the power to do so. Instead, you’re researching those nice pictures the Opportunity rover sent to the Earth, type random letters in Google to see where they will lead you to, tidy up your desk, or make another cup of coffee. You are procrastinating.

Because I procrastinate a lot, and because I have several important tasks to complete, I decided to read more about the psychological background of procrastination. I went to Google Scholar and typed “procrastination.” One of the first results was a paper with a promising title. “The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure” by Piers Steel. Why was I intrigued by this paper? First of all, it’s a meta-analysis, meaning that it reviews many previous quantitative studies. Secondly, it promises a theoretical review, which is also a good thing. So, I decided to read it. I started from the abstract, and here’s what I see:

Strong and consistent predictors of procrastination were task aversiveness, task delay, selfefficacy, and impulsiveness, as well as conscientiousness and its facets of self-control, distractibility, organization, and achievement motivation.

Hmmm, isn’t this the very definition of procrastination? Isn’t this sentence similar to “A strong predictor of obesity is a high ratio between person’s weight to their height?”. Now, I’m really intrigued. I am sure that reading this paper will shed some light, not only on the procrastination itself but also on the self-assuring sentence. I definitely need to read this paper. Maybe tomorrow.

PS. After writing this post, I discovered that the paper author, Piers Steel, has a blog dedicated to “procrastination and science” https://procrastinus.com/. I will read that blog too. But not today