The assignment has been open on the laptop for 45 minutes. Your teen has reorganized their desk, answered three texts, gotten a snack, watched a video, and suddenly decided that now would be an excellent time to start a new art project. Anything, it seems, except starting the assignment.
It’s easy to look at procrastination and see a time-management problem: They need to be more disciplined. They need to stop getting distracted. They just need to start.
But procrastination is often more complicated than that.
Research has long conceptualized procrastination as a problem of self-regulation, with factors including task aversiveness, impulsivity, distractibility, organization, and confidence in one’s ability to complete a task all playing a role. More recent frameworks also emphasize something that many chronic procrastinators know intuitively: procrastination can be about managing uncomfortable emotions in the present, even when doing so creates a bigger problem for our future selves.
In other words, before asking “How do we make them stop procrastinating?” it can be more useful to ask: “What is making this task hard to approach?”
Overwhelm: I Don’t Know Where to Start
“Write your history paper” sounds like one task. It isn’t.
A student may actually need to choose a topic, understand the instructions, find sources, decide what information matters, organize ideas, develop a thesis, create an outline, write a first paragraph — and somehow determine where to begin.
For someone who struggles with executive functioning, seeing the entire project at once can make it difficult to identify an entry point. When everything feels like it needs to happen at once, doing nothing can feel easier than figuring out where to start.
What can help: Make the first step almost ridiculously concrete.
“Work on your paper” is an open-ended task with many steps. Instead, try: “Open the assignment and highlight what you need to turn in.”
The goal is to lower the activation energy required to begin.
Anxiety: Starting Feels Stressful
Other times, a student may know exactly what to do — but approaching the task itself brings up anxiety.
Maybe they’ve struggled with similar assignments before. Maybe they’re worried about how difficult it will feel, what feedback they’ll receive, or what will happen if they don’t finish on time. Even opening the assignment can bring up uncomfortable feelings, and avoiding it offers a way to postpone those feelings for a little longer.
The problem is that this relief is usually temporary. The assignment is still there, and as the deadline gets closer, the anxiety often grows.
What can help: Make room for the anxiety without making “feeling ready” a requirement for starting.
Try: “You don’t have to feel less anxious before you begin. What’s one small thing you could do while the anxiety is here?”
The goal isn’t necessarily to make the anxiety go away first. It’s to make starting possible even when anxiety is present.
Perfectionism: I Need to Do It the Right Way
Perfectionism can disguise itself as procrastination.
A student might tell themselves:
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- “I need a big block of uninterrupted time.”
- “I should figure out exactly what I want to say before I start.”
- “If I can’t do my best work tonight, I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Waiting for the ideal conditions can feel responsible. Unfortunately, those conditions rarely arrive.
What can help: Practice intentionally lowering the bar for the first attempt.
A rough draft is allowed to be rough. A first attempt is allowed to be incomplete. Starting creates information that thinking about starting cannot.
Task Aversion: I Just Don’t Want to Do It
And sometimes the explanation is simpler: they really don’t want to do it.
Research has identified task aversiveness as a consistent predictor of procrastination. If something feels boring, frustrating, tedious, difficult, or unrewarding, our brains are naturally drawn toward alternatives that feel better right now.
What can help: Instead of waiting for motivation, change the conditions.
Try a 10-minute timer. Work alongside someone else. Change locations. Pair the task with something pleasant. Break the work into short intervals.
We don’t always need to make a task appealing. Sometimes we just need to make it easier to tolerate.
Emotion Regulation: Why Avoidance Works (Until it Doesn’t)
Why do so many of us continue to struggle with procrastination? It’s because procrastination often works — at least temporarily.
You look at the task and feel overwhelmed → You avoid it → You feel better.
That immediate relief teaches your brain something: avoiding this task helps me feel better.
Researchers have described procrastination through this lens of short-term mood regulation. When a task generates unpleasant emotions, improving how we feel now can take priority over protecting our future selves from the consequences of delay.
Of course, the task is still there. And now there is less time to do it.
So, What Should Parents Do?
When a child or teen procrastinates, repeatedly reminding them that they’re procrastinating usually doesn’t tell them anything they don’t already know. Instead, get curious about the barrier.
Try asking:
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- “What part feels hardest to start?”
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- “Do you know what the first step is?”
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- “Is this feeling boring, overwhelming, confusing, or stressful?”
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- “Would it help if we figured out the first step together?”
The answer tells you much more about what kind of support might actually help.
A student who doesn’t understand the assignment needs something different from a student who is afraid their work won’t be good enough. A student struggling to organize five competing deadlines needs something different from a student who knows exactly what to do but can’t pull themselves away from a more immediately rewarding activity.
Make Starting Smaller
Across many forms of procrastination, one principle can be useful: Shrink the distance between doing nothing and doing something.
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- “Finish your homework” is enormous. “Open Google Classroom” is small.
- “Study for biology” is enormous. “Answer five practice questions” is small.
- “Clean your room” is enormous. “Put the clothes on the floor into the hamper” is small.
We often assume motivation needs to come before action. But sometimes action comes first — and motivation catches up.
Look Beneath the Delay
Procrastination is a behavior, not an explanation.
If we stop at “They’re procrastinating,” we miss the more useful question: Why?
Maybe the task feels overwhelming. Maybe they’re unsure where to begin. Maybe they’re afraid of doing it badly. Maybe it feels unbearably boring. Maybe avoiding it provides a few minutes of relief from stress.
Understanding the function of procrastination doesn’t mean removing expectations or letting deadlines disappear. It means figuring out what is getting in the way so we can choose a strategy that actually addresses the problem.
Interested in learning more about procrastination and executive functioning strategies? Contact us about BCSC’s emotion-focused executive functioning services here.