Procrastination can have many causes. Generally these causes are broken down into 2 types. Psychological reasons are related to mental issues while Physiological problems are related to physical problems. We will look closer at the 2 causes below

1 Generally speaking Psychological reasons can vary greatly but is is usually possible to categorize them as follows:-

Anxiety, low self worth and a self defeating mentality. If you are faced with a task that needs to be completed some groups of people will fret over it. Others who suffer from low self worth will feel that they are not to complete the task due to lack of ability. The final group of people will believe that they will fail at the task even before they start.

Many people when faced with the task will dramatically over estimate the amount of work required to complete the task and this can very soon become a habit. Breaking a procrastination habit can be very difficult

2. Physiological. The causes of this type of procrastination seem to surround the role that the prefrontal cortex of the brain plays in a person’s life. It is this area of the brain which controls our executive brain functions such as planning, the control of a person’s impulses, their attention span or lack of it and is also there to help filter out those distractions which might otherwise stimulate the brain.

One reason as to why someone may suffer from physiological procrastination is because there has been damage or they have a low amount of activation in this area of the brain. Because of this the person may have difficulty in being able to filter out distracting stimuli. This will then often appear as poor organization and their attention levels are decreased. Often these affects are similar to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) where under activation of the prefrontal cortex is found.

For people who procrastinate because they feel a task is too overwhelming there are several tactics that work. Firstly divide any tasks you have into small easily manageable chunks. Once you have that then set a deadline for each task and ensure you stick to it.

If you regularly suffer from procrastination you should consider taking action to combat it. Depending on the sort of procrastination you should consider visiting a doctor or a psychiatrist or even a local therapist may be able to help. Very often all that’s needed is a program like procrastination blaster which can help rapidly conquer your procrastination.