Back in the 1990s, I put pagers on students and paged them [eight times a day for five days before an academic deadline]. And when they finally started working on the project, empirically we found that they didn't see it as as difficult or as stressful as earlier in the week. So their perceptions of the task changed. There's lots of reasons to think that that's what happens to us when we get started. SL: But what about getting distracted?

Roughly 5 percent of the population has such a problem with chronic procrastination that it seriously affects their lives. None of it seems logical. How can people have such good intentions and yet be so totally unable to follow through? Conventional wisdom has long suggested that procrastination is all about poor time management and willpower. But more recently, psychologists have been discovering that it may have more to do with how our brains and emotions work. Procrastination, they've realized, appears to be a coping mechanism. When people procrastinate, they're avoiding emotionally unpleasant tasks and instead doing something that provides a temporary mood boost. The procrastination itself then causes shame and guilt - which in turn leads people to procrastinate even further, creating a vicious cycle.

Tax Day is a horror for many procrastinators. For many people, a little procrastination isn't harmful - like 15 minutes lost in Facebook or putting off doing the laundry for a few days. But then there are things like taxes. And all the people who keep meaning to start saving for retirement, but never do.

Why your brain loves procrastination

am py