How to Put a Stop to Putting Things Off

More than once during your ongoing game of dodge-the-guy-in-accounting, you have pondered the obvious: Why don't I just fill out the stinking form already? It's a good question, too. Why is it that you still haven't turned in an expense report from the business trip you took three months ago? And why, oh, why did you blow off shopping for your significant other's birthday present and opt instead for a last-minute "gift basket" cobbled together at CVS, Whitman's Sampler and all? While you're at it, you might as well consider why, despite the flickering "check engine" dashboard light, you drive past the auto repair shop every day and think, "I'll do it tomorrow."

Wouldn't it be nice to be proactive, thoughtful, thorough and on time in all things? To be the one who gets the thank-you cards in the mail before the helium has even seeped out of the party balloons? Whose taxes are filed while there's still snow on the ground? The one who realizes that "It's next on my list" is the kiss of death?

You can take solace in the fact that you are, at least, not alone. "Everyone procrastinates," says Joseph Ferrari, a DePaul University psychology professor who has extensively researched procrastination. In fact, 20 to 25 percent of people put off things so persistently that they're deemed chronic procrastinators. "They don't RSVP on time, they wait until the gas is on empty, they don't go to the doctor when they're supposed to," Ferrari says. "It's what they do."

Sometimes procrastinators come out on top (when someone else picks up their slack or the problem disappears on its own), but more often, procrastination has a negative impact. Beyond the immediate fallout from your failure to get it done, there's the stress of something hanging over your head, the time spent making excuses, the loss of credibility when you routinely fail to perform and, worst of all, the opportunities missed while you're frittering away valuable minutes.

Of course, if you've avoided the big work project that's due next week, chances are you did so with corresponding excuses: You have more immediate fires to fight, the project is boring or it's overwhelmingly complex. You're overworked. Underpaid. Cue the violins. But there's probably more to your procrastination than you've recognized. At the root of stall tactics, there often is fear, says Elyse Goldstein, a psychologist in private practice in New York.

For some, it is fear of failure, which creates anxiety and a subconscious self-protective response. For others, it is fear of success. Such procrastinators worry that "if they do well, more demands will be placed on them," Goldstein says. To be safe, they put it off.

Other forces are at work, too. Procrastinators may be unable to quell their inner critic. You know, the one that says, "You stink," over and over until you quietly close your laptop and slink home to console yourself with a bottle of wine or a pint of ice cream. Or they may seek to create a false sense of greatness. "If you don't do something and you don't put it out there, you can't get criticized on it," Goldstein says. "You can hold on to some fantasy of being perfect."

Some procrastinators even do it for the thrill, Ferrari says. "If they pull it off at the last minute, there's this rush, this euphoric feeling they get," he explains.

Of course, some experts think it's all much simpler than that. "It's almost a knee-jerk reaction to discomfort," says psychologist Bill Knaus, author of "The Procrastination Workbook."

"You don't want to feel uncomfortable, fearful, uncertain, bored or whatever else the negative feeling is," he says. So you "needlessly avoid a timely relevant activity until another day or time." When that day or time arrives, "the probability is that you'll put it off again."

Take a Good Look at Yourself

For hard-core procrastinators (the 20 percent labeled "chronic"), time management and organizational efforts aren't likely to have much impact. Ferrari likens such efforts to "telling a depressed person to cheer up." Therapy is often the only ans wer.

But for the other 80 percent or so, those people who procrastinate only some of the time, simple measures can greatly decrease the tendency to put off things (see "Starter Steps"). Most of them boil down to revamping how you think about things, overcoming inertia and managing your time better.