Procrastination is often seen as a sign of poor time-management and laziness; however, in most cases, this is untrue. Rather than being apathetic about their tasks, many are simply overwhelmed by their workload. For some, they want their work to be perfect or they think that they’re incapable of performing well; therefore, they prolong working so that they do not have to live in a world where their performance is not good enough. Many procrastinators would prefer to be viewed as lazy instead of incapable. 

For instance, Joseph R. Ferrari, a psychology professor at DePaul University, and Dianne Tice; a psychology professor at Brigham Young University, performed two studies in 2000 where participants were split into two groups. Then given a math test and some time to practice. However, one group was told that it would be an evaluative test and the other group was told that the test would be a fun game. Both studies showed that before the evaluative test people who labeled themselves as regular procrastinators were more likely to self-handicap themselves and procrastinate before the test and not practice. In the second study, the self-proclaimed procrastinators only procrastinated on the evaluative test and did not procrastinate when it was described as a fun game. The results of the studies support the idea that people are more likely to procrastinate when the task makes them anxious or is an evaluation of their ability. 

Factors other than anxiety and the fear of failure also play into procrastination, such as distractions and time. When faced with a task that makes people nervous, most people tend to look for something to distract themselves from negative emotions. So when people are surrounded by distractions, the chances of them procrastinating go up significantly. Additionally, the more time someone is given between the start of an assignment and its due date, the more likely they are to put off the work until a later time. 

If you or someone you know is prone to procrastinating don’t lose hope, there are some things you can do to lessen your procrastination. The first thing to do is to be aware of why you are procrastinating. From there you can try to put yourself in an environment with few distractions, try changing your perspective so that work seems fun instead of stressful, or set small goals that are easy to accomplish rather than an intimidating lengthy list of arduous tasks.