6.3 Procrastination: The Good Side

If you’ve ever found yourself procrastinating, how did it feel? What reactions or emotions come to mind? For many, the act of procrastination leads to feelings of guilt and self-doubt, anxiety and distress, or fatigue.

Although procrastination is often maladaptive, unhelpful, or detrimental, and is linked to stress, which is associated with negative health outcomes, other research is demonstrating that procrastinating is not always a bad thing. Tice and Baumeister (1997) found that undergraduate students who procrastinated on school work experienced apparent benefits, including lower levels of stress and fewer symptoms of illness compared to non-procrastinators, but only early on in the academic term. These effects reversed later in the term and the benefits did not outweigh the costs overall.

Much of the research around the potential benefits of procrastination differentiates between passive and active procrastination. Passive procrastinators are people who procrastinate in the traditional sense of the word and are often paralyzed by their indecision to act. Active procrastinators are those who prefer to work under pressure and thus deliberately decide to procrastinate. It has been suggested that active procrastinators are intentionally raising their level of challenge, which many find enjoyable and can lead to increased feelings of motivation (Kim & Seo, 2013). Further, researchers found that effort regulation—the tendency to maintain the focus and effort toward goals, despite potential distractions—was linked to active procrastination (Kim & Seo, 2013). In other words, active procrastinators might be meeting deadlines with acceptable results due to effort regulation. Keep in mind that much of the research around active procrastination is around tasks and not health behaviors which do not have deadlines; the same benefits do not exist for putting off practicing self-care.

The majority of studies around procrastination demonstrate a connection between passive procrastination and diminished wellbeing. Putting off important tasks causes stress, and stress contributes to short-term and long-term physical and psychophysiological impacts on the body which can include headaches, digestive issues, insomnia, hypertension, heart disease, and depression (APA, 2018; Lund, 2010; Sirois, 2015). Additionally, academic performance suffers when students procrastinate (Kim & Seo, 2015). Overall, if you find you’re one to procrastinate, it is worth exploring why and discover strategies to help you manage your time and achieve your goals.