The cursor blinked. Again. Pinching a tiny black slice into the white canvas of my Word document. That relentless, mocking little bastard was at it for the last two hours. And my room was startin to smell faintly of desperation (never mind the distracting stains on my coffee mug). Another huge paper for my dissertation was due, like, yesterday, and it was breathing down my neck, all hot and bothered. And me? I was writing. Yeah, right. More like I was deep-diving into the internet’s best cat videos. Anything but the thing. My gut was doing that familiar washing machine churn of guilt, anxiety, and a particularly potent strain of self-loathing. You know the feeling. You get it.
But this wasn’t a one-off back then. This was my life. My own personal Groundhog Day of delay. It always started with this cold dread, then a manic flurry of anything but the actual work, cleverly disguised as essential preparation. Finally, it would be the mad, panic-fuelled scramble, pouring caffeine down my throat like it was a cure for incompetence, just to slap something together with more anxiety than I wanted.
I’d thrown every trick in the book at it. Pomodoro timers? Made me hate tomatoes and time itself. Bullet journals? Became these pristine tiny monuments to all the sh*t I wasn’t getting done. Chirpy motivational quotes? Love you, Bob Ross, but these were tiny, brightly coloured slaps in the face. No happy accidents in my time pressure. Not Nothing. Ever. Stuck. I was convinced I was just… defective. A lazy, undisciplined human, destined to swim in a sea of half-finished tasks and crushing disappointment. My brain felt like it was running on Windows 95 in a world demanding a quantum computer. The lag was unbearable.
Then, one night much later in my career, probably during an intense session of avoiding taxes by trying to master the art of origami, a tiny little thought wormed its way in. What if I wasn’t just a procrastinator? What if this wasn’t some giant, singular monster I was wrestling? What if my procrastination had its own quirks? A personality? What if I was throwing punches in the dark because I didn’t even know what my opponent looked like?
That little flicker of an idea? It was like someone finally switched on a light in a dark, messy room. It sent me on a different kind of research binge. And what I found out? It pretty much blew my mind and changed how I stare down that empty page every day.
Procrastinator Isn’t a Moniker, It’s a Mood Ring
Here’s the first truth that hit me like a ton of bricks. Being a procrastinator isn’t a permanent tattoo on your soul. We sling that word around like it’s a simple, straightforward diagnosis, but the reasons we put things off are as varied and complex as your Netflix recommendations. Think about it for a second. If you have a cough, you don’t just grab any old lozenge, right? You figure out if it’s a cold, allergies, or maybe you just inhaled too much cat hair. Treating every bout of delay with the same generic “just do it” advice is like trying to fix a plumbing leak with a band-aid. Pretty useless, mostly frustrating. And the basement will start to smell soon.
That’s exactly what I’d been doing. Applying those one-size-fits-all productivity hacks to a problem that had way more layers than I realized. Turns out, some folks actually thrive on that last-minute pressure. They use it. I have students like that. But for a lot of us, it’s a genuine struggle, a real glitch in our self-regulation, as the classic view puts it. The trick is figuring out your own, unique flavour of foot-dragging.
I stumbled into the work of psychologist Linda Sapadin, and reading her breakdown of six procrastinator types felt useful.
Meeting the Usual Suspects
Let’s see if any of these characters feel a bit too familiar. Because honestly, recognizing your own brand of delay-demon is the first, massive step toward actually finding strategies that don’t make you want to throw your laptop out the window. And as you go through life you might go through them all.
1. The Perfectionist
It’s not done ’til it’s divine (which is never)
Oh, the Perfectionist. This one hits too close to home for so many of us. Their motto is basically, “If I can’t make it award-winninly perfect, then why even bother starting?” They get tangled up in the tiniest details, overthink every single comma, and live in mortal fear that their work won’t ascend to the god-tier level of their imagination. Fatality!
Starting feels like trying to sculpt David with a butter knife because perfect is a target that’s always just out of reach. I once spent an entire weekend — no joke — perfecting the font kerning and colour palette for a single lecture presentation slide. The content? Still wasn’t done. Whoopsies. The result of all that perfecting was another last-minute, caffeine-soaked scramble that was, ironically, far from perfect. The real trick I learned was to brutally lower my standards for the first pass. And build a system. Aim for good enough, or even passably mediocre to just get something on the page and move on with your content. Give yourself explicit permission to create a truly awful first draft. I realized my perfectionism wasn’t really about achieving high standards. Some of it was a sneaky way to avoid the fear of judgment. Action, however messy and imperfect, became my antidote to that fear. And it’s working until today.
2. The Avoider
If it feels bad, it must be tomorrow’s problem
The Avoider sees their to-do list not as a set of tasks, but as a minefield of negative emotions. They’re always worried. Too hard. Too boring. Or simply: What if I fail spectacularly and everyone laughs? That’s what they worry about. They put things off because the task itself, or the thought of doing it, triggers anxiety, fear of failure, or just a profound sense of yuckamole (not the stuff with delicious avocados). My email inbox used to be a digital haunted house because replying to certain messages felt like gearing up for a cage fight. I’d rather have scrubbed the bathroom grout with a toothbrush. It’s a vicious cycle, because the more you avoid, the bigger and scarier the task becomes in your head, and the more shame and guilt pile on. However, I learned later that an email inbox is just someone else’s todo list. So, I fully embraced that and only reply to the things that matter instead of worrying about inbox zero.
The breakthrough for me was learning to identify the core feeling. Was it really fear of failure? Or was it just profound boredom? Then, I’d play a little game: shrink the task. Just open the doc and work on this thing for five minutes. Five. You can survive five minutes. More often than not, just dipping a toe in the water made the whole ocean seem less terrifying. Sharks and all. The momentum, however tiny, started to dissolve the dread. It’s all about managing your emotions.
3. The Crisis-Maker
I only sparkle under pressure (like a cheap firework)
Meet the Crisis-Maker. The one who proudly proclaims, “I work best under pressure.” Looking at you, Joe. They’re the ones who seem to intentionally wait until the clock is screaming red, because that adrenaline surge, that thrill of the looming deadline, is what gets their engine roaring. It makes them feel sharp, focused, alive. I used to wear this badge with a weird kind of pride. Sometimes, I’d even pull off these minor miracles, producing something decent in an impossible timeframe. I felt like a productivity ninja. Sweet adrenaline.
But let’s be real, the collateral damage was immense. My nerves were perpetually frayed, my relationships strained by my last-minute meltdowns, and the quality of the work? Honestly, it was often rushed and rarely my actual best. Plus, living in a constant state of low-grade panic isn’t exactly a recipe for a long and happy life. What helped was learning to create artificial mini-deadlines with actual, albeit small, rewards. And finding healthier ways to get that adrenaline rush: a tough workout, a competitive board game, anything that didn’t involve jeopardizing my career or sanity. It’s about recognizing that while the pressure feels productive, it’s often just a very stressful way to operate, and there are less chaotic ways to find your focus.
4. The Visionary
My ideas are amazing! The execution, uh… later.
The Visionary is a fountain of world-changing ideas. They get incredibly excited about the big picture, the dazzling possibilities of new projects. Their enthusiasm is infectious. The problem? When it comes to the actual, often tedious, nitty-gritty details of making those visions a reality, their energy deflates like a sad balloon. Their hard drives and notebooks are often graveyards of half-started next big things.
I know mine certainly was at some point. The initial spark of an idea felt like fireworks. But the actual work of building the rocket felt like hauling bricks uphill in the mud. The most effective strategy I found was to brutally force myself to pick ONE vision to chase at a time. Then, break that nebulous vision down into ridiculously small, concrete, almost boring action steps. A task like writing a novel becomes “draft one single paragraph of chapter one.” Finding an accountability partner, preferably someone a bit more grounded and pragmatic, also works wonders. That’s what got me into fitness and I still work out almost every day. They were the ones who could gently pull my head out of the clouds and ask, “Okay, but what’s the very next thing you need to do?”
5. The Defiant
You can’t make me! (Even if ‘you’ is actually me)
The Defiant is a fascinating character. They resist. They resist schedules, they resist expectations, they resist being told what to do. Even if the person telling them is their own rational brain. Procrastination for the Defiant often becomes a subconscious (or sometimes conscious) act of rebellion, a way of asserting their autonomy and control in a world that feels too demanding. If my boss, or even a well-meaning friend, told me I had to do something, even if it was something I genuinely wanted to do or knew was important, a stubborn little part of me would instantly want to dig in its heels and do the exact opposite. What can I say. I don’t like being told what to do.
It wasn’t always a loud, “Hell no!” It was often a quiet, passive-aggressive foot-dragging. The key for me was learning to reframe tasks so they felt like my choice, aligned with my values and goals. I had to find the “why” that resonated deeply with me, not just with external pressures. And, where possible, giving myself choices in how and when I did the work helped dial down that internal resistance by upping my sense of control.
6. The Overdoer
Yes! Yes! Yes! Oops, no time for my own life anymore.
And finally, the Overdoer. These are the folks who just can’t seem to say no. But that’s a magical skill in its own right. Their default answer to any request is “Yes, of course.” And they go help with the thing. They take on too much, overcommit their time and energy, and then, predictably, find themselves completely swamped. Legs sticking in quicksand. The tragic irony is that while they’re busy being everyone else’s hero, their own important priorities, their personal goals, end up getting neglected and delayed.
My calendar used to look like a game of Tetris played during one of those scary Japanese earthquakes. Chaotic and dangerously overfilled. I was so caught up in fulfilling everyone else’s urgent requests that my own crucial, soul-feeding projects were constantly pushed to the back burner. And that was no good. Remember the thing I said about your email inbox beind someone else’s todo list. Don’t let them do that.
Learning the incredible power of a polite but firm default no, or even a “not right now, but maybe later,” was an absolute revelation. I just started saying no by default. It felt terrifying at first, like I was letting people down. But you can’t pour from an empty cup. Hurting feelings because you prioritize isn’t hurting feelings. Actually scheduling my own important tasks as non-negotiable appointments in my calendar became my lifelines. Time-blocking became my winning system. And I was way more productive.
It’s all about knowing your operating system
Discovering these types wasn’t like finding a new flaw to obsess over. It was like someone finally handed me the instruction manual for my own slightly peculiar brain. Suddenly, my constant struggles weren’t because I was inherently lazy or undisciplined; they were because I was using the wrong tools for my specific make and model of procrastination.
And man, that brought such a wave of relief, of actual self-compassion. I wasn’t broken. I was just… me, with a brain that had its own unique set of preferences and escape routes. And that meant I could finally stop fighting against my brain and start figuring out how to work with it.
This isn’t about uncovering the one magic “hack” that will cure you forever. It’s about getting curious about your own personal triggers and go-to delay tactics. Are you putting off decisions because you’re terrified of making the wrong one (that’s Decisional Procrastination, a close cousin to some of these types)? Or are you sidestepping a task because it just feels like climbing Mount Everest in flip-flops (hello, Avoidant tendencies)? The why you’re delaying is so much more important than the what you’re delaying.
My Messy, Ongoing Journey to Actually Getting Stuff Done
For me, realizing I was a potent blend of Perfectionist and Overdoer was my big revelation. Instead of beating myself up for not instantly diving into a massive project, I started asking myself, “Okay, what’s the absolute smallest, least intimidating, most ridiculously easy step I can take right now?” Sometimes, that was literally just opening the damn document. Other times, it was challenging myself to write one truly terrible, cringe-worthy sentence, just to break the seal. Or just posting content online.
I didn’t suddenly transform into a productivity cyborg. But I got that sweet self-awareness in tailoring my approach. It was in the dawning realization that motivation isn’t some mythical creature you have to wait for to appear. No, it’s simply a muscle you build, a tiny spark you create with action, however small and imperfect that action might be.
Look, this isn’t a fairy tale with a perfect ending. I still have days where the jiving song of “Later, alligator” is almost too tempting to not start dancing to. But now, I have a better map. I can recognize the warning signs. I can usually identify which of my inner procrastinator types is trying to take the wheel. And then, I can pull out a strategy that actually has a fighting chance of working, instead of just flailing around in the dark.
I've put it all together in a cheat sheet for you.
