Reasons for procrastination

Procrastination represents a profound problem of self-regulation. 

There may be more of it in the U.S. than in other countries because we are so nice; we don't call people on their excuses ("my grandmother died last week") even when we don't believe them.

We tend to pay attention to the present at the expense of the future. Our present self will eat an extra piece of cake, or skip a training session, or procrastinate and leave our future self to deal with the consequences. This is known as temporal discounting.

We all know that sleep improves our well-being, and lack of sleep is harmful. Yet, we don't sleep enough. Common reasons are poor sleep, work, stress, and young children. Another reason is "bedtime procrastination" - when we put off going to bed because we think other things are ...