The Chart of Procrastination

Beating the Procrash Team in Action

Although you may have a preferred procrastination method, in general, most people practice all four types. This is why it is often difficult to eliminate procrastination as any one could derail a task. Look for the reason for your procrastination rather than the labels or symptoms. You may exhibit perfectionism but why?  Is it because you enjoy taking time to make things as perfect as they can be?  Or is it because you worry about what people will think of the result?  Or maybe you worry something will happen if it is not done perfectly.  The last two cases are driven by fear and therefore is procrastination by "Fear of Failure" and fear coping strategies should be used.

In the above chart, the sides have labelled to indicate the net effect. For example, thrill seeking is generally a positive experience and associated with a late start. Whereas fear of failure is an unpleasant one and often leads to missed deadlines.

One type of behaviour not covered in the above chart is poor prioritisation. This is an important issue, but does not meet the our chosen definition of procrastination:

"Procrastination is to voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay", Piers Steel (2007)

as you are unaware that you are delaying a task unnecessarily. The topic of prioritisation is more than adequately covered in many articles and books such as Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People*.