6.5 Reasons for Procrastination: Cognitive Distortions

Procrastination is complex and could have many reasons behind it. Unhelpful thoughts can get in the way of completing a task or meeting a goal. Automatic thoughts known as cognitive distortions are biased ways of thinking about the world or ourselves; cognitive distortions are often inaccurate, exaggerated, or otherwise dysfunctional. They might help us justify our less healthy behaviors or contribute to procrastination. Many different types of cognitive distortions exist. Here are just a few examples:

• Selective Abstraction: Focusing on the negative and filtering out the positive. Fear of negative or critical feedback one might receive while attempting to make a change or complete a task could lead an individual to resist getting started. Additionally, knowing that parts of a task or project might be unpleasant could prevent them from also seeing the positive aspects or outcomes associated with following through.
• Fortune Telling: Reacting based on expectations of future events as if the outcome is already known. One example would be avoiding setting a goal around sleep during the middle of the academic term and saying to one’s self, “This is impossible to maintain considering how much school work I have right now.”
• Emotional Reasoning: Interpreting an emotional response as truth. For example, instead of just feeling unsure or worried about approaching a task, the person thinks, “I feel really anxious about this task, so I’d better not tackle it now” or “I’d better save this for a time I’m not feeling so overwhelmed.”
• Comparison with Others: Comparing one’s self and feeling inferior to others. For example, an individual feels their peers are much more qualified than they are and puts off getting started on grad school applications. Another example might be saying to one’s self, “Why even try to fit more physical activity into my day? My roommate runs every morning and I’ll never be that active.”
• Should Statements: Feeling pressured that we should behave in a certain way or do certain things regardless of current abilities or how realistic the should actually is. Should statements may also be based on inauthentic motivation or may not be fully thought through yet, which can lead individuals to put off actually acting on them.
• Dichotomous Thinking: Making a quick judgement about whether something fits in one category or another, usually positive or negative. This can lead to procrastination if someone believes they must fully complete a task and execute it perfectly or it isn’t worth their time. For example, they might say to themselves, “Making small improvements to my nutritional habits is ineffective, and I can’t really spend the time and energy to do it right.”
• Control Fallacy: The belief that we either a) have no control over our lives, or b) we are in complete control of ourselves and our surroundings. Both can be unhelpful and equally inaccurate. No one is in complete control of what happens to them; at the same time, everyone has at least some control over their situations. Those who feel out of control may have a hard time initiating tasks or taking on large or high-stakes projects and those who feel they have complete control may get frustrated when unexpected barriers arise.

These are just a handful of cognitive distortions (Morrison et al., 2015). Others highlight the risks of labeling, overgeneralizing, and personalization.