RRL’S

. A procrastinator wastes too much time on something which gives him or her pleasure such as playing
computer games or reading an update in his or her social networking website. Mostly, procrastinators
keep themselves ready to work but end up avoiding the task (Noran, 2000).

Laeus ( 2015) explains that the procrastination is avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished.
He further states that procrastinate is the process of doing more pleasurable things in place of less
pleasurable ones, or carrying out less urgent tasks instead of more urgent ones, thus putting off impending
tasks to a later time.

According to Tuckman, Abry, and Smith, there are 15 key reasons why people procrastinate: Not
knowing what needs to be done, Not knowing how to do something, Not wanting to do something, Not
caring if it gets done or not, Not caring when something gets done, Not feeling in the mood to do it, Being
in the habit of waiting until the last minute, Believing that you work better under pressure, Thinking that
you can finish it at the last minute, Lacking the initiate to get started, Forgetting, Blaming sickness or
poor health, Waiting for the right moment, Reading time to think about the task, Delaying one task in
favour of working on another

The procrastinator however, must learn to raise the value of certain priorities even if they do not truly
enjoy doing them – in order to continue to be productive in all aspects of their lives. The public
perception of those who procrastinate is the belief that task-aversion is accompanied by laziness, low
willpower, irresponsibility and low ambition. While this is not the attitude of those who research or treat
procrastination in a psychological or clinical area – it is how the general public (your friends, boss,
clients) see you. Academic procrastination has almost always been a substantial reason for poor academic
performance especially among student who are academically capable which is shown in a study done by
Onwuegbuzie and Jiao (2002,

Thanks to the Internet, never before has procrastination been so ready an option for people in so many
different walks of life, even if those of us who work at a computer for a living—writers especially—are
most vulnerable. Over the past couple of decades academia has begun to take up procrastination as a
worthy subject for research, with studies, analyses, and even a book of philosophical essays published
during this time. We tend to think of procrastination as a very modern phenomenon, and one that has
come into its own in the age of html. In some ways, it is a modern phenomenon. But procrastination was
also an ancient issue, likely having unfolded with the emergence of a division of labor in which failing to
complete a job no longer spelled immediate doom, and with the invention of diversions with which to
enact the procrastination—village gossip, say, or a board game, the earliest known of which was played
around 3500BC. It’s reasonable to posit that the first bout of procrastination arrived the same day as the
first assigned task. Today, we understand procrastination not only as the putting off of something until
tomorrow, but also undertaking other, less important tasks as a means of putting off the more important
ones. Procrastination rarely involves doing nothing, but it does involve doing the wrong thing for that
moment. It is very different from working on something slowly, or over a long period of time. This
explains why someone like Ralph Ellison, who worked on his second novel for several excruciating
decades, leaving it unfinished at his death, does not necessarily qualify as a procrastinator—he was
working all along on the thing he set out to work on, he just couldn’t get it right. We don’t have much
evidence from ancient time of how people procrastinated—personal confession remained a couple
millennia away from becoming the world’s de facto writing genre—but we know that it was happening,
and not in isolated cases. More detailed accounts of procrastination—its methods and methods of
prevention—would emerge around the time of the Renaissance, as we’ll see in this timeline of
procrastination through the ages. Perses, Brother of Hesiod: Your Standard Slacker (Approximately
700BC) One of the earliest proclamations against procrastination came from the ancient Greek poet
Hesiod. In his poem “Work and Days,” Hesiod addresses his brother, Perses, who has squandered his
inheritance and is looking to Hesiod for a re-upping of his funds. Hesiod beseeches Perses to stop
avoiding his duties:

David S Ackerman, Barbara L Gross Journal of Marketing education 27 (1), 5-13, 2005 Procrastination
can have a negative effect on learning. Many previous studies have examined personality factors that
contribute to procrastination. This study examines selected assignment characteristics controllable by the
instructor that might influence student procrastination. Results found less procrastination on assignments
that were perceived as interesting, that required students to use a variety of skills, for which students
perceived social norms and rewards for starting promptly, and for which the instructor provided clear
instructions. Procrastination was not affected by fear, deadline pressure from other assignments, or the
degree to which the task was perceived as difficult or time consuming.

Procrastination is a challenge we have all faced at one point or another. For as long as humans have been
around, we have been struggling with delaying, avoiding, and procrastinating on issues that matter to us.
During our more productive moments, when we temporarily figure out how to stop procrastinating, we
feel satisfied and accomplished. Today, we're going to talk about how to make those rare moments of
productivity more routine. The purpose of this guide is to break down the science behind why we
procrastinate, share proven frameworks you can use to beat procrastination, and cover useful strategies
that will make it easier to take action. (James Clear)

Deniz et al. (2009) studied 435 undergraduate college students who attended a Turkish university. The
researchers administered the Emotional Intelligence Scale, the Academic Procrastination Behavior Scale,
and the Rotter Locus of Control Scale (LOC). They found that there was a significant negative
relationship between procrastination and internal locus of control with the intrapersonal, interpersonal,
adaptation, coping with stress, and mood subscales on the Emotional Intelligence Scale. Results also
showed that individuals with an internal locus of control procrastinate less and complete their homework
earlier than those with an external locus of control. There was a positive correlation between
procrastination and coping with stress, where procrastination serves as a tool for coping with stress.
Problems relating to school, health, and family may be associated with procrastinating behavior in
students. Individuals who can overcome stress are able to take precautionary measures to prevent the
behavior of procrastination. Additionally, there was a positive correlation between procrastination and
anxiety, where anxiety increased the tendency of procrastination; therefore, anxiety was a predictive
factor in procrastination. This supports the findings of Rothblum et al. (1986) that were discussed earlier,
which indicated that high procrastinators were significantly more likely to report more test anxiety,
weekly state anxiety, and weekly anxiety related physical symptoms compared to low procrastinators.
Possible ways to reduce the anxiety include making an organized study schedule, disputing unhealthy
thoughts, and practicing breathing exercise
Locus of control. Locus of control is defined as “the degree to which the individual perceives that a
reward follows from, or is contingent upon, his own behavior or attributes versus the degree to which he
feels the reward is controlled by forces outside of himself and may occur independently of his own
actions” (Rotter, 1966, p. 1). According to Beretvas, Suizzo, Durham, and Yarnell (2008), perceiving an
event as contingent on one’s effort or ability marks an internal locus of control, whereas perceiving it as
contingent on luck, chance, fate, or the control of powerful others indicates an external locus of control.
Locus of control is rooted in social learning theory, which states that when a behavior is reinforced, the
expectancy that this behavior will be similarly reinforced in the future is strengthened (Rotter, 1966).
Reinforcements perceived as outside of one's personal control are less likely to raise expectancies for
future reinforcements following successes that are perceived to be within one's personal control.

If it seems as if procrastination has been around for centuries, it has. Consider some 535 years ago when
the Friars of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception asked Leonardo da Vinci to create a painting
of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child for the altar of their chapel. The artist agreed to have it finished in
seven months, but instead, it took him 25 years to completed the project. Although Leonardo da Vinci is
considered a Renaissance man, and a genius of art and design, he was, without a doubt, one of the best
early procrastinators on record.

Hachette UK, 2007 A practical, tested program to overcome procrastination by achieving set goals,
managing time, enlisting support, and handling stress. A must have for anyone who puts things off until
tomororw. Based on their workshops and counseling experience, psychologists Jane B. Burka and Lenora
M. Yuen offer a probing, sensitive, and at times humorous look at a problem that affects everyone:
students and scientists, secretaries and executives, homemakers and salespeople. Wise, effective, and
easy-to-use, Procrastination identifies the reasons we put off tasks-fears of failure, success, control,
separation, and attachment-and their roots in our childhood and adult experiences.