Matching features

Almost everyone procrastinates sometimes: the report started the night before it is due, the dentist's appointment that is never booked, the email that sits unanswered for weeks. For a long time, procrastination was treated as a simple problem of poor time management, to be solved with better diaries and to-do lists. Psychologists today are less sure. They have proposed several explanations, and each one points to a different kind of solution.

The first, which we might call the mood theory, sees procrastination as a way of managing feelings rather than time. According to this view, when a task makes us feel anxious, bored or uncertain, putting it off brings immediate relief. The problem is that the relief is short-lived, and the guilt that follows often makes the task feel even more unpleasant the next time. Supporters of this theory argue that planning tools will not help much on their own; people also need to learn to tolerate uncomfortable feelings, for example by agreeing to work on a task for just five minutes.

A second explanation comes from economics. The reward theory starts from the observation that people value rewards less the further away they are. The benefit of revising for an exam in three weeks' time feels distant and abstract, while the pleasure of watching a film tonight is immediate and concrete. Because the effort is needed now and the reward arrives later, delaying seems sensible at each moment, even though it is unwise overall. This theory suggests bringing rewards closer, for example by setting several small deadlines instead of one large one.

A third approach, the task theory, shifts attention from the person to the work itself. Tasks that are vague, unstructured or have no clear first step are far more likely to be delayed than tasks that are clearly defined. “Write the essay” is easy to avoid; “write three sentences explaining the main argument” is much harder to put off. Researchers in this area recommend breaking large tasks into small, specific actions, and they point out that organisations can reduce delays by giving staff clearer instructions.

Finally, the perfectionism theory holds that people delay tasks because they are afraid of producing work that is not good enough. If a task is never finished, it can never be judged. This explanation is popular with the public, and many procrastinators describe themselves as perfectionists. However, when researchers have measured both traits, the connection has generally turned out to be weaker than expected, which suggests that perfectionism may explain some people's delays but not most.

Most psychologists now accept that these theories are not really competitors. A student who delays an essay may find it boring (mood), feel that the deadline is far away (reward) and not know where to begin (task), all at the same time. Understanding which factor matters most for a particular person and a particular task may be the first step to finally getting it done.

When a city transport authority began planning changes to its night bus network, it first asked a simple question: who actually travels between midnight and five in the morning? Over four weeks, researchers interviewed more than 3,000 passengers on buses and at the busiest stops, asking where they were going, why they were travelling at that hour and what would improve their journey. The answers were surprising, and they showed that four quite different groups depend on the service.

The largest group were shift workers: cleaners, hospital staff, security guards and kitchen workers whose jobs begin or end at night. Many said they had no real alternative, since few could afford a taxi every day, and around a quarter said they would have to change jobs if their route were cut. Unlike other passengers, they travelled at the same times on every day of the week, usually between the edge of the city and the centre.

Students made up the second group. Most were travelling home from libraries, part-time jobs or friends' homes, and they were the passengers most likely to say that they chose the bus instead of walking for reasons of safety. They were also the group most interested in being able to follow the bus's exact position on a phone app, so that they did not have to wait alone at a stop.

The third group were people returning from evenings out at restaurants, concerts and bars. Their numbers rose sharply on Fridays and Saturdays and fell almost to nothing on Mondays and Tuesdays. Drivers said that this group was responsible for most complaints about noise, although passengers in the other groups rarely mentioned the problem.

The smallest group were visitors to the city, many of them travelling to or from the airport with luggage. They were the least familiar with the network and the most likely to ask drivers for directions. Several suggested that timetables at stops should be displayed in more than one language.

The authority has since decided to run more buses at weekends on routes that serve entertainment districts, while protecting, rather than reducing, the weekday routes that shift workers rely on.