Procrastination's Roots

We can easily justify procrastination.

The matter needs more study. Additional resources will arrive next month. Ed and Maria are on vacation. Other matters are pawing at the door.

And who's to say things won't improve if we leave them alone?

After all, it happens. Sometimes, he who hesitates is saved.

But we know that in most cases, procrastination is drift and drift is bad. When we get to the end of the work day, we glean a sense of accomplishment from matters completed, not from items postponed. The risks of procrastination are obvious. Bad news rarely improves with time; indeed, it gets far worse.

Consider how often we know when we are procrastinating and that a task must be done and yet we still resist doing it. Why?

Is there some primal warning signal that triggers our reluctance?

Or are we committing a silent act of rebellion against the notion that it is we, and not someone else, who must act?