Student Special: "It isn’t the missed start that traps people; it’s what they do in the moment afterwards"

Many students know the feeling: an assignment is due next week. You have plenty of time to start it today, but somehow you end up cleaning your room instead, scrolling on TikTok and then finally convincing yourself you’ll definitely do it tomorrow. Then tomorrow comes and the cycle repeats.

Procrastination is often treated as a personal failing, proof that you’re lazy, disorganised or simply not trying hard enough.

“People who don’t struggle with it often see it as a character flaw,” says Professor Jill Pearson, a chartered Work and Organisational Psychologist at the University of Limerick. “The biggest misconception is it’s an easy fix if you just tried.”

In reality, procrastination is far more complicated than simply not wanting to do something. David Maloney, a psychologist and psychotherapist, says that while psychology typically defines procrastination as voluntarily delaying a task despite knowing the delay will leave you worse off, he believes the most important part comes after the delay itself.

“It isn’t the missed start that traps people; it’s what they do in the moment afterwards,” he says. “Change that reaction and the whole pattern begins to dissolve. So I’d say define it by the moment after, not the moment of. And that moment after is best met with curiosity rather than blame. It’s a chance to understand your own resistance, not to scold yourself for it.”

Maloney explains that procrastination is often misunderstood as a problem of poor planning or organisation.

“For a long time, procrastination was treated as a time-management problem,” he says. “More recently, the dominant theory has reframed it as a problem of emotion regulation.”

But what is actually happening in the moment when we choose to avoid something we know we should be doing?

“The standard account is that procrastination is short-term mood repair,” Maloney explains. “The task makes you anxious or bored, avoiding it brings instant relief, and you pay for it later.”

For students, those emotions can be especially difficult to navigate. Pearson believes part of the challenge comes from the sudden shift in independence that university brings.

“There’s a freedom you’ve never had before, and you probably won’t have again,” she says. “It’s very stressful.”

For many students, university is the first time they are fully responsible for managing their own schedules, deadlines and workload. Pearson sees learning how to handle that responsibility as an important part of the transition into adulthood.

“It’s learning how to regulate your emotions, it’s learning how to regulate your productivity,” she says.

The emotional side of procrastination can also explain why assignments often end up feeling bigger than they really are. “Grades fuse with self-worth,” says Maloney. “So an essay stops being an essay and becomes a verdict on whether you’re good enough.”

When that happens, even starting can feel daunting. Perfectionism can add another layer of pressure, making students feel as though every piece of work has to be excellent from the outset. “The practical antidote is almost comically simple,” Maloney says. “Give yourself permission to do it badly.”

When it comes to managing procrastination, neither expert believes there is a one-size-fits-all solution. Pearson encourages students to look at habits and strategies that have worked for them before. She points to techniques such as studying with friends, using accountability partners or trying “body doubling”, where people work alongside each other to stay focused.

Maloney, meanwhile, argues that students often make things harder for themselves by immediately trying to compensate after missing a planned study session.
“The core move is to stop making more promises the moment you’ve broken one. Set a specific start time, and if you miss it, that’s it for that task today,” he says.

“No rescue, no ‘I’ll catch up tonight’. It sounds permissive, even reckless at first, but it does the opposite of letting you off the hook. It rebuilds self-trust at speed, because your start times begin to mean something again.”