Everybody procrastinates, but not everyone is a procrastinator. And contrary to popular belief, procrastinating has little to do with laziness. It’s far more complicated than simply being a matter of time management. Chronic procrastination doesn’t discriminate based on gender, race or age; we’re all susceptible.

So, to provide a brief definition. Procrastination is the voluntary, unnecessary delay of an important task, despite knowing you’ll be worse off for doing so.

And then here’s why it can actually be a pretty serious issue for a lot of people. Procrastination slows your goals and dreams way down. It can create stress and feelings of frustration. It can make time management useless. This often appears at work with day-to-day projects and tasks.

Fortunately, it’s possible to learn how to overcome procrastination once we know why people procrastinate.

Research has done a lot to help us understand procrastination psychology and why we continuously engage in this annoying behavior. We are going to take a look at the top reasons here, but first, let’s talk a little about our emotions and active vs. passive procrastination.

Which type of procrastinator are you?