Are you saying that this confusion of the definitions of delay and procrastination is a fundamental problem with using or extending procrastination research?

If so, it would stand to reason that the articles should not have been published. Did peer review fail here? Does the journal's editorial board have a comment about this?

I think you clearly see my own conclusion; there is a fundamental problem here. I don't think the research addresses procrastination, but this is not unusual, unfortunately. Researchers from different disciplines do define procrastination differently in their research. Actually, they don't usually define it at all, and that is itself a problem. Typically, researchers from areas like economics, mathematics and schools of business assume procrastination and delay are the same thing. Usually, but not always, psychologists don't do this.

Did peer review fail? No, not in the sense that it was reviewed by peers and accepted. At least some peers agree with this stance. That said, as I noted at the outset, you are right in reading my post as a comment on a fundamental problem with this research. My response to this article as a reviewer would have been different.

Thanks for the comment and questions. I hope this is helpful as a reply.
tim

Hi Tim

Your comments on the logical impossibility of 'active procrastination' are interesting. I myself was of the view that 'active' procrastination might be a useful concept, and a valid area to consider research in.

Assuming that procrastination is counterproductive delaying behaviour caused by self regulation failure, could it be possible that 'active' procrastination could be differentiated from other forms of procrastination that are especially harmful?

For instance, I suffer from real procrastionation issues when completing academic papers (Don't worry I just finished and submitted one and I'm not procrastinating now!) I often get anxious and distractable whilst writing these papers, and every so often I get up and do something else.

However, I've noticed that I can choose to do other things which, though NOT as helpful as staying seated and doing the work properly, still contribute slightly to both my paper and/or other tasks I will have to get done anyway e.g. Instead of surfing the web, I can decide to clean my room, which both completes a needed task, but also frees up my brain so I can keep mulling over ideas.

In this case active procrastination is always procrastination (as it is not most the appropriate and effective activity to be doing at the time) but still better than doing something of no value whatsoever.

It seems to me that learning better ways to 'actively' procrastinate might be a useful way for procrastinators to handle their problems. E.g. when I get to a difficult section of a paper that I'm really struggling to write, I could train myself to instead skip the section and start writing another section, and come back to the difficult section when I feel more like it; notice that the decision to change the section I'm writing is only made after I feel resistance to doing the most appropriate/effective activity and so changing to working on a different section of the paper I believe still counts as a kind of procrastination.

Any thoughts?

M

Hi M,
Thanks for the thoughtful and insightful comments. The thing with active procrastination as defined by the authors is that the individual makes the decision to delay very deliberately and strategically. As I read your reply above, I sense that you delay deliberately, but it's not strategic as it's really self-regulatory failure based on your emotions (as you note, you get anxious and distractible). So, the definition of active procrastination didn't have anything to do with what else you did but on the nature of the choice made, and this is why I think it's not procrastination at all, just delay.

What you're really writing about, I think, is structured procrastination. Have you seen John Perry's essay on this? If not, check out http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/200804/structured-procras...

Your last paragraph interests me the most. When you do what you're saying above, I don't think you're procrastinating at all! Yes, you're delaying writing a particular section of your essay or paper, but you are continuing to write the paper. You're doing other work, sometimes incubating ideas as you noted previously as well. All of this is the work of writing a paper. So, we disagree about the labeling and understanding of procrastination in this case. I would say that you're avoiding work on a particular section of the paper (for any number of reasons), but you're not procrastinating on the paper per se, you're staying put and working towards that section in a more circuitous fashion, but working back to it nonetheless. In fact, I think you're way too hard on yourself. I suggest this strategy to every student with whom I work. It's very effective, and I applaud your use of it. The thing is, I don't think it's procrastination, unless, of course, you perseverate on these other sections and never really get back to that difficult section (but that's another story).

Active procrastination still remains an oxymoron for me. So much so, I don't even want to follow up on my first post with more on the topic. I think it's really a misunderstanding of procrastination for other forms of delay.

Back to you,
tim

I'm really sorry that you won't be following up on this very important topic of procrastination vs. delay, since you state that this is a fundamental issue. In reviewing the use of the word 'procrastination' in other disciplines (sociology and systems engineering / computer science in this case), it is clear to me that its use is intended to mean delay. In fact, one sociology paper states that because procrastination is a deliberate changing of the completion time of a task by extending the duration of the task process, it is by nature active.

To me the key here is that in psychology, procrastination is used to describe individual human behavior. Where a qualitative tagging of causes and effects may not be relevant in other disciplines it is crucially important in psychology. Would not the narrower definition play an important role in analyzing the findings in studies?

Ok, I will return to this topic. ;-)

Thanks for your thoughts here and the cross-discipline comparisons. It interested me to note that the sociology authors see procrastination as active because it's a change in the completion time. Of course it's active if this is what active entails, what isn't? I think this is a serious semantic cesspool (NOT your email, but the use of words in relation to procrastination and delay).

Yes, I agree, a narrower definition is required, but this has always been a problem, particularly in social psychology. We use the same word to describe different constructs and different words to describe the same construct across various studies. To be frank, it's a mess. That's why one of the doctoral students in our program whom I am supervising is taking on the definition and a the creation of a new measure. It's needed quite desperately.

I will return to this topic, perhaps by paraphrasing one of the chapters from Mohsen's prospectus.
cheers,
tim

Alarm bells ring for me whenever I see a value judgment and an activity combined into the same definition.

Delay in doing something one is committed and available to do is commonly called procrastination. It is also commonly considered a bad thing. I challenge the idea that it is bad. I think it may be good. Or it may be both bad and good.

If you want to call it procrastination only when it's *exclusively* a bad thing, then I'd argue that you can never call anything procrastination. For one thing you don't KNOW that it was exclusively bad. For another thing, even if you do know, you might change your mind later. Finally, someone watching you might consider it positive, even if you don't.

To call any human behavior "always negative" is to reduce the complexity of human life and will to something like a cartoon. Nothing is only negative or only positive. Is violence always negative? Violence, and the threat of violence, makes civilization sustainable, yet I would think any thoughtful and caring person would be at least ambivalent about it.

My conscious will is not the only part of me that matters. My conscious will is but a figment of my brain's many interacting processing loops that conspire to give me the illusion of self. I have found that my unconscious mind is rather powerful. Though it won't speak to me in words, it undermines my will on a regular basis, and I've learned to work with it.

Procrastination is always negative only if you approach the mind with the sensibility of a bad parent or despotic ruler. But if one rejects the idea that one's will should effortlessly override one's other inner resources, then procrastination becomes a kind of communication between layers of ourselves.

This is how I live. I do lucrative creative and technical work, and I'd say that procrastination (not merely "delay" but procrastination as you define it, wherein I have the conscious sense that I will be worse off, but also the wisdom not to take that sense too seriously) is one of the tools I use to get the most out of the whole stack of creative faculties available to me.

I sometimes wish that I had the ability to commit my whole self to one course of action, but I've learned to appreciate the advantages of a wandering and diffused mental existence. At this point in my life I would probably not trade my brain in for a non-procrastinating model.

James Marcus Bach
Author: Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar
(I wrote this as part of procrastinating about starting my own Psychology Today blog)

Thank you for replying and taking my comment seriously. I appreciate that.

I still don't see where you demonstrate that my definition of procrastination is wrong. I understand that you don't like it, but if you check the Oxford English Dictionary, as I just did, you will find that my view of procrastination is well supported. Maybe you'll say that your view is well supported, too, but where that puts us is not in an "I'm right, you're wrong" space, it puts us into an interesting argument where we get to justify and compare views. Clearly, under the OED, assuming that particular dictionary is credible to you, procrastination is arguably about delay, and not necessarily always negative. This is at the very least an arguable issue among reasonable people.

I also don't understand why you distinguish between delay and procrastination when your blog is called "Don't Delay." That would seem to equate delay and procrastination. It certainly gives that impression.

But here's the thing I really worry about for you. Your tactic of using definitions to frame the debate simply shifts the language of the debate without addressing the underlying issue: when is delay/procrastination/whatever-you-call-it okay, and when isn't is okay? Is folding a value judgment into the definition of an activity really helping you have that conversation?

I see you are trying to make a point about delay not necessarily being a tool but rather being desultory and a failure of self-regulation. Okay. So... How do you know that? How do you tell the difference between desultory and non-desultory delay? I don't find that a failure of self-regulation is always bad. Because I have a complex and multi-level model of self-control. The failure of my first-order self-control (my conscious will does not command my actions) may be a symptom of successful second-order self-control. But it's HARD TO KNOW, when I experience such failures and successes, whether they are what I think they are. How do you deal with that issue? I don't pretend to have an easy answer to this difficult philosophical matter. I have a range of thoughts and heuristics by which I cope.

Anyway, I like using the word procrastination because-- apart from it being a reasonable word defined in the OED to mean what I think it means-- people often do think that delay is bad when I suspect they would be better off-- ahem-- deferring judgment on that...

-- James

I am so pleased that I was procrastinating this afternoon, because it led me to discover your "Don't delay" blog.
Please forgive me for being facetious but that is this a case of Active Procrastination?
No I thought not. In any event, being a terrible procrastinator myself, I have found your site extremely insightful and I have printed off your 4 part guide so that I can read it on the train on my way home.

I will be an avid reader.

With my sincere appreciation
Bridget

Thanks for the feedback Bridget. I'm glad the blog is useful to you. You can find podcasts and a daily "boo" at procrastination.ca as well.
all the best,
tim

I read this post a while ago but keep thinking of it every now and then. I keep thinking that it doesn't reflect the strategies that I try to use in my life - where I *know* I will procrastinate on certian things, and try to have a long list of other productive work things I can do while procrastinating.

For example, I am a PhD student, so of course I frequently procrastinate on working on the big "D". It is not a deliberate, thoughtful, delay, in which I decide that another action is more important for me at that time. There will often be times I planned to work on my dissertation and the dissertation is the most appropriate thing to do at this time, but I decide not to do. However, I could procrastinate by mindlessly surfing the net, sleeping, etc. Or, what will often happen, is I will procrastinate by doing things that *feel* productive, but aren't really - cleaning my house, organizing my files, etc. So instead, I try to have a long list of other work-related tasks I can work on - and I try to make it a long list of small tasks so there is lots to choose from and I will more than likely find something I won't resist doing. Unlike a previous commenter, it wouldn't be an intentional strategy to allow my mind to mull over my writing, etc. - it is still self-regulatory failure, because if you asked me at those times what I felt I *should* be working on, I would say the dissertation.

After reading over your comments, I do think this is close to the "structured procrastination" concept... although I don't keep the dissertation at the top of my list intentionally to motivate myself - this sounds like you never really plan to do it - whereas I really do plan to and would like to work on it.

What made me finally come back to comment on this post is a section I came across in "Making It All Work" by David Allen. He is talking about energy level being a factor to consider when deciding what actions to do at a given moment. He is suggesting that when your energy is low, you should work on tasks that will still keep you positively engaged with your world (e.g. cleaning up email, replacing your printer cartridge). I think by your definition, this would be planned delay, as you are making a conscious decision to delay more intensive tasks based on your energy level.

However, he then goes on to say this:
"Of course the line between doing simple things because that's the best you can manage and doing simple things as a way to avoid the more challenging ones is very thin! But if you're going to procrastinate anyway, you might as well enjoy the downtime but get some constructive things done. Doing something and feeling slightly anxious is probably better than doing nothing and feeling seriously guilty. As long as you're at least willing to engage with your world in any kind of constructive manner, taking any action at all will often start moving your energy in the right direction, and you might actually reach a level of sufficient strength that you need to tackle a project a little riskier with a higher payoff."

I think his last point is particularly interesting. It is almost an extention of the "just take out the file" strategy - except you're working on something totally different, hoping it will get you in a positive mood and make you feel more like working on the other task you are procrastinating. I think for graduate students, especially, it can be an important point. I know for a while I was in a bit of a rut. I had finished classes and cleared some other things off my plate, and my advisor was encouraging me to put some other projects aside until I got some work done on my dissertation. However, because I tended to procrastinate on my dissertation, and I had nothing else productive I could work on instead, I just ended up feeling *really* guilty all the time, and trying to avoid thinking about work by doing lots of mindless things - and ended up in a really low energy, low productive rut. I think a key to fighting procrastination is to keep moving forward, be aware that you are procrastinating, and keep your mind on the project you are procrastinating on - eventually you will work up the energy to work on it - even if it isn't as often or as much as you would ideally like, it might be better than nothing.