Why do we put things off?

We’ve all been there. We put things off all the time. 

With that really good idea, that we need to take action on.  We’ve worked out the benefits of achieving our goal and we know what it's going to cost us to get there.  We’ve weighed it up and decided that yes, this is a worthwhile use of our time and we’re going to get on with it.

And then we go and make a cup of tea.  And write another blog post, ring that client who you haven’t spoken to for a while, decide to get your bookkeeping up to date for your accountant.

A week goes by and for some reason, you haven’t actually done the thing that you said you were going to do, EVEN THOUGH its something that you want to do and you know is important?

Does that sound familiar?  

We all do it.  And we all know that we all do it and that we shouldn’t do it but we still do. It is such a bad habit to get into and its one that a lot of my clients struggle with.  

But why do we do it, and how can we stop ourselves?

Why do we put things off?

I’m not going to go too deep into the psychology behind why we chose to put things off, to procrastinate, to find a hundred other more important things to do when faced with a deadline but in my experience the simple answer is fear.  

We’re afraid of change.  We’re afraid of failure, yes, but more often than not we are also afraid of success.  

That sounds silly, doesn’t it? Why would anyone be afraid of success?  But it's true.

The fear of failing is widely talked about, the fear of success?  Not so much.  But it exists and it is really common.

If you’ve had a business that has been ticking along nicely for a long while, that makes you decent money, that you enjoy and that you know gets great results for your clients, then you’re in a pretty safe place.  Making the decision to want more, and then to decide what action you are going to take to GET more and get you out of that safe place is a big scary decision.

What happens if it doesn’t work?  This is a fear that we’ve probably all been through in our heads many times.  At least I tried, I’ll never know unless I try, it’s understandable that not everything works, I just need to give it my best shot etc.  

But what happens if it does work?  If you suddenly manage to add an extra online income stream to your business and bring in over $10K a month with ease and enjoyment.  What then?  What will your clients think, your family and friends?  Will it change you?  Will you become someone you don’t want to be?  What if it's not fun anymore?  What if you have to pay more taxes on the extra income?  

Sometimes being successful is as scary as failing.  

And I think that’s why we put off taking action because the place we are now is comfortable. It might not be enjoyable but it's what we are used to and so we stay there.  Even when we know we could do so much more.

Next time you feel yourself procrastinating stop for a minute and take a moment.  Sit down quietly, empty your mind and just ask yourself - what am I afraid of?  Am I more afraid that this will not work - or that it will?

You might be surprised at the answer you get.  

This isn’t always an easy exercise to do on your own, its one that I use with my coaching clients and if you want to talk to me about 1 on 1 coaching then I’d love to hear from you - let’s see what’s holding YOU back from being successful.

The "Good Enough Future Self" Illusion That Keeps You Stuck

There is one psychological mechanism behind procrastination that almost nobody talks about plainly, and it is this: we consistently overestimate how capable, motivated, and disciplined our future self will be. Researchers call this "temporal self-appraisal," but I prefer to call it the Good Enough Future Self illusion, because that is exactly what it is. We imagine that the version of us who exists on Thursday morning, or after the school run, or in January, will somehow be a slightly better human being than the one sitting here right now. She will be calmer. She will have more energy. She will finally feel ready. She almost never is.

I noticed this pattern acutely when I was building my content business. I kept pushing a particular financial admin task to "the end of the month," convinced that end-of-month me would have more headspace for it. I did this for four consecutive months. When I finally sat down and timed the task, it took 23 minutes. Twenty-three minutes that I had mentally inflated into a monster requiring a perfect, undisturbed afternoon that never arrived. The task was not the problem. My belief in a future version of myself who would be better placed to handle it was the problem.

The reason this illusion is so persistent comes down to emotional distance. When you imagine yourself in the future, you picture the actions without the feelings. You see yourself typing the report; you do not feel the boredom, the self-doubt, or the distraction that will accompany it. So the task looks far more manageable from a distance than it ever does up close. This is why people sign up for gym classes two weeks in advance with total sincerity, and then cancel on the day. Future-you was assessed under laboratory conditions that present-you never gets to experience.

A practical way to break this cycle is what I call the "same-self rule." Before you defer anything, you ask one honest question: is there any concrete, specific reason my circumstances will be different when I plan to do this? Not "I'll feel better," but something real, like "I will have the data I'm waiting for" or "the school holidays will be over." If the only reason you're pushing something back is a vague sense that you'll be more ready, that is the illusion talking. Do a smaller version of the task right now. Not the whole thing. Just the first physical action: open the document, write three sentences, send one email. You are interrupting the handover to a future self who was never going to show up differently.

What makes this particularly worth examining is that the illusion is not a character flaw; it is a feature of how all human brains process time. You are not lazy for doing it. But once you name it, you stop giving it quite so much authority. I have worked with clients who spent years believing they were fundamentally disorganised people, when in truth they were just repeatedly deferring to an imaginary, more capable version of themselves. Recognising the illusion does not make procrastination disappear, but it does make it far harder to treat postponement as a sensible plan rather than what it usually is: a story we tell ourselves to feel better in the present moment at the direct expense of our future one.

The short version: Procrastination is not about laziness - it is about emotion. We avoid tasks because they trigger anxiety, self-doubt, or boredom, and our brains choose short-term comfort over long-term reward. Understanding that procrastination is an emotional regulation problem, not a time management one, is the first step to breaking the cycle.

Frequently asked questions

Is procrastination the same as being lazy?

No, they are very different things. Laziness is a lack of desire to do anything at all, while procrastination is an active avoidance of a specific task, often driven by fear of failure, perfectionism, or emotional discomfort. Many high achievers are chronic procrastinators.

Why do we procrastinate even on things we want to do?

Because wanting the outcome does not always make the process feel good. A task can feel overwhelming, uncertain, or tied to our sense of self-worth, which triggers avoidance even when we care about the result. The brain weighs immediate emotional cost against future benefit, and the immediate cost often wins.

Does procrastination get worse under stress?

Yes, and it creates a feedback loop. Stress increases emotional avoidance, which leads to more procrastination, which creates more stress. Breaking that cycle usually requires reducing the emotional weight of the task rather than simply trying harder to force yourself to start.

What is the most effective way to stop putting things off?

Shrink the task until it feels emotionally safe to begin. Research from psychologists like Timothy Pychyl shows that just getting started disrupts the avoidance pattern, because the anxiety we anticipate is almost always worse than the experience of doing the work.