How much do you actually procrastinate?

Approximately 20% of adults consistently identify as chronic procrastinators in survey research, a figure that has remained stable across decades. This comes from Steel's 2007 meta-analysis and Ferrari's epidemiological work. "Chronic" means procrastination is a persistent, cross-situational trait rather than an occasional response to a boring task.

No. Procrastination is the voluntary delay of an intended action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay. Procrastinators often want to complete the task and feel genuine distress about not doing so. The mechanism is typically emotion regulation: people procrastinate to avoid negative emotions associated with the task. Steel's 2007 meta-analysis found that procrastination correlates strongly with low self-efficacy and anxiety, neither of which are features of simple laziness.

The General Procrastination Scale (GPS) was created by Clarry Lay, a psychologist at York University in Canada, and published in 1986 in the Journal of Research in Personality. It consists of 20 statements about everyday behaviours, including returning phone calls, paying bills, getting out of bed, and finishing tasks on time, each rated on a 5-point scale from "extremely uncharacteristic" to "extremely characteristic." Eight items are reverse-scored so that higher total scores consistently indicate greater procrastination. The total score ranges from 20 to 100, with a population mean of approximately 57. The GPS measures trait procrastination, meaning the habitual, cross-situational tendency to delay, rather than task-specific procrastination. It is the most widely used procrastination measure in academic research, appearing in hundreds of published studies spanning four decades. The scale is in the public domain and does not require a licence to administer. (Source: Lay CH, Journal of Research in Personality, 1986;20(4):474-495)

Yes. Rozental and Carlbring's 2014 meta-analysis found that CBT-based approaches produced moderate to large effect sizes (d = 0.6-0.9). Effective strategies include breaking tasks into specific sub-steps, identifying thoughts that trigger avoidance, and using implementation intentions. Understanding that procrastination is an emotion regulation problem rather than a time management problem is itself a meaningful intervention. Procrastination correlates with personality traits; see where you land on the difficult person test for a broader personality profile.

Slightly. Steel and Ferrari's 2013 global sample found that men scored an average of 58.1 compared to 56.4 for women, a small but statistically significant difference. The difference is consistent but modest, and the overlap between distributions is enormous. Age is a much stronger predictor than gender, with the gap between 18-24 year olds and 55+ adults being roughly seven times larger than the gender gap.

Wondering if your browser tab count is normal? Check the open tab calculator. Digital environments create near-infinite opportunities for task-switching and avoidance, which is one reason procrastination rates have trended slightly higher over recent decades.

Yes. Steel's 2007 meta-analysis found a moderate correlation between procrastination and anxiety (r=0.24) and a similar correlation with depression (r=0.23). Sirois's 2023 review confirmed that chronic procrastination is associated with higher perceived stress, poorer mental health, and lower subjective wellbeing. The relationship appears to be bidirectional: anxiety makes it harder to start tasks (avoidance), and the resulting procrastination creates additional stress and guilt, which feeds the anxiety. For people scoring in the chronic range on the General Procrastination Scale, this cycle is worth taking seriously. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has the strongest evidence base for breaking the pattern, because it addresses both the avoidance behaviour and the distorted thinking that sustains it. See also the social anxiety quiz for related population context.

Steel and Ferrari's 2013 study found that students score an average of 62.4 on the General Procrastination Scale, compared to 54.8 for full-time employed adults and 50.8 for adults aged 55 and over. Several factors converge. Academic deadlines are often weeks away, which reduces the temporal motivation that close deadlines provide. Students also face high autonomy with relatively low external accountability compared to structured employment. Assessment anxiety is a strong avoidance trigger: starting a task requires confronting the possibility of failure, so delay feels emotionally safer. Social comparison among peers can also normalise procrastination, making it feel less costly than it actually is. The good news is that procrastination tends to decrease substantially after formal education ends.

Chronic procrastination is associated with measurably worse health outcomes. Sirois's 2015 meta-analysis found that procrastination correlates with higher stress, more frequent illness, and lower engagement with preventive health behaviours such as regular check-ups, exercise, and healthy eating. Procrastinators are more likely to delay medical appointments, ignore symptoms, and skip prescribed treatments. A 2023 Swedish cohort study of over 3,500 university students found that high procrastination scores predicted higher rates of depression, anxiety, stress, and physical symptoms over a nine-month follow-up period. The mechanism is partly behavioural, delaying health actions, and partly physiological, since chronic stress from unresolved tasks elevates cortisol and can impair immune function over time. For people scoring in the chronic range on the General Procrastination Scale, these health associations are worth taking seriously and represent one of the stronger arguments for seeking structured support, whether through CBT, coaching, or productivity habit change. (Source: Sirois FM, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2023; Johansson et al. 2023)

Some researchers distinguish between "active procrastination," deliberately delaying a task to work better under pressure, and "passive procrastination," avoiding a task due to indecision or anxiety. Active procrastinators deliberately choose to delay and report higher satisfaction with their outcomes than passive procrastinators. However, research on this distinction is mixed. Steel's comprehensive meta-analysis found that the costs of procrastination generally outweigh the benefits even for self-reported active procrastinators, because the subjective experience of urgency is a poor predictor of actual performance quality. "Productive procrastination," doing lower-priority tasks instead of the important one, is the most common self-deception in the chronic procrastinator's repertoire and delivers no real benefit.