Why you procrastinate

Researchers found four phases we go through to do a job:

• Inception: Decide to get started
• Planning: Decide how to complete the task
• Action: Perform the steps
• Termination: Define when the work is done

Triggers that lead to procrastination are: Boredom, frustration, difficulty, stressful, ambiguous, unstructured, unrewarding, and meaningless. The first four triggers tend to appear at all stages of doing a task, and the other four can happen after the work has started.

Productivity systems often focus on how to complete your tasks. However, it is just as important to understand why we battle to do the work.

Procrastination triggers are emotional, making it harder to analyse them objectively. Learning about the most common trigger...