Procrastination: Where Does It Come From and What Can We Do About It?

Procrastination is a topic that has been widely discussed in recent years. One key idea is that we tend to procrastinate when we face internal contradictions: “I want to rest, but I force myself to work,” “I tell myself I need to do something, but I don’t believe in it,” “I do things for others even though I don’t need to,” “I want to complete a task, but I’m afraid of failure,” and so on. But what if we look at procrastination not just as a psychological issue, but also as a cultural phenomenon?

Together with psychologist Maria Lyakhova-Tragel, let’s explore the conflicting messages modern culture sends us, how the simultaneous existence of achievement and pleasure cultures, the cult of reason, and the fascination with the irrational can disorient us, and whether it’s possible to find balance among these contradictions.

What Is Procrastination?

Sayings like “like a hamster on a wheel” or “pounding water in a mortar” describe frantic activity that leads nowhere. In the 21st century, we have a special term for this: procrastination. The word comes from the Latin root meaning “tomorrow.” A procrastinator imagines getting things done but endlessly puts them off. Procrastination causes us to get bogged down in minor tasks, lose focus on results, and lowers productivity.

It’s important to distinguish procrastination from laziness: a procrastinator can (and often does) stay very busy, but their activity is directed at resisting change and creating something new. Laziness is a complete refusal to act, while procrastination is replacing one activity with another, less effective one. Laziness can serve as a defense mechanism against burnout and help us rest, but a procrastinator neither works at full capacity nor truly rests, which ultimately reduces productivity even more.

Procrastination is often explained by the concept of displaced activity, which has also been observed in animals. When an animal can’t escape an unpleasant situation or is torn between tasks, its activity shifts to something useless in that context. For example, hamsters annoyed by cage vibrations can’t escape, so they start grooming themselves instead. Their energy can’t be channeled constructively, so it’s released in a non-constructive way.

Human life is more complex, so the situations that trigger procrastination are even more varied. What they have in common are internal contradictions that block our energy:

• I want to rest, but force myself to work.
• I tell myself I need to do something, but don’t believe it.
• I do things for others, even though I don’t need to.
• I want to complete a task, but I’m afraid of failure.

Procrastination as a Cultural Phenomenon

Let’s look at procrastination from a cultural-psychological perspective, which combines psychology with fields like history and cultural studies. This approach uses methods such as hermeneutics, approximation, and ideal models to view procrastination as a cultural phenomenon.

Modern culture is like the legend of the Tower of Babel—everything is mixed together: world religions, philosophical movements, generational beliefs, and national traditions. This blending happened quickly, in the 20th and 21st centuries. No single discourse has emerged, so today’s cultural background is like a patchwork quilt—or, to use a darker metaphor, Frankenstein’s monster. Mary Shelley’s novel, published in the 19th century, was prophetic in this sense.

The “seams” between different cultural elements reveal their incompatibility. When people uncritically accept these differences, they end up believing in worldviews that contradict each other. This is a hallmark of postmodernism, where disharmonious combinations and the equality of diverse elements are the norm. Such perceptions create internal contradictions that people may not always recognize, but they do experience the consequences.

As we’ve seen, procrastination is a marker of internal contradictions. Let’s examine which cultural elements make us out of sync with ourselves.

The Culture of Achievement vs. the Culture of Pleasure

The drive for major achievements is often thought to have emerged in Russia during the Soviet era, with its focus on large-scale projects and disregard for individual needs—examples include the planned economy and the Stakhanovite movement. But the cult of achievement is much older, characteristic of Protestant culture (which influenced the U.S.) and even ancient times, as seen in phrases like “I came, I saw, I conquered” and “Faster, higher, stronger.”

However, the lack of a single ideology today means there are no universal standards for success. What counts as achievement now? A top job, a family, travel, foreign property? There are many criteria, but none are universally accepted. Adopting a culture of achievement without clear definitions can be disorienting, and people unsure of what to strive for risk getting stuck in procrastination.

On the other hand, the pursuit of pleasure has become widespread. We’re encouraged to find work we love, enjoy travel, possessions, food, and live in the moment. Consumer culture partly explains this, as advertising taps into our desire for pleasure and avoidance of pain to drive purchases. But the culture of pleasure is not just a tool for consumption—it has deep roots, with hedonism as a philosophy dating back to ancient times.

Humanistic psychology (motivation as the pursuit of needs) and Buddhism (freedom from suffering, living in the present) have also contributed to the culture of pleasure. Importantly, these disciplines in their original forms do not advocate blind pursuit of pleasure.

Consider someone who throws themselves into work with full dedication, exerting great effort and not resting until the job is done. When the result is achieved, they become exhausted. Even after recovering, memories of hard work make them want to avoid suffering and seek pleasure instead. As a result, they become lazy or get lost in trivial tasks to delay facing the next big challenge. On the surface, this looks like poor work organization, but at a deeper level, it’s a conflict between the drive for achievement and the desire for pleasure.

Both the culture of achievement and the culture of pleasure are deeply rooted in human history and individual lives. The intersection of these worldviews can cause internal contradictions and disorientation. Should we give in to temptation or sacrifice it for future success? Struggling to answer this question can drag us into the swamp of procrastination and threaten to deprive us of both values: pleasure and achievement.

The Culture of Rationalism and the Neglect of Feelings

The tradition of separating reason, emotion, and intuition began with ancient philosophy and was reinforced during the Enlightenment. The culture of rationalism spurred the rapid development of science, which underpins today’s civilization. Our lives depend on scientific and technological progress, so rationalism still commands respect.

Sometimes, the pursuit of rational thinking leads to devaluation—when the humanities are ranked below the sciences, art is dismissed, and emotional life and intuitive decisions are denied.

As Freud and his followers showed, human behavior cannot be explained by rational motivation alone. The psyche includes both rational and irrational parts. Devaluing either disrupts psychological integrity and leads to internal conflict. As seen in time management research, procrastination often signals a conflict between the rational and the irrational.

“The rational and the irrational act as partners in creating something new. On the other hand, the mind can become a jailer, trying to keep the irrational part of the psyche locked within strict plans and time limits.”

Resistance to this process takes the form of laziness and procrastination.

Let’s look at fear of failure in the context of procrastination. Sometimes this fear points to past negative experiences, other times to real risks in the current task. Either way, it warns of possible obstacles. The culture of rationalism, when it devalues feelings, suggests ignoring this fear and pushing forward. But unprocessed emotions create nervous tension. If this tension becomes too much for the psyche to handle, avoidant behaviors like procrastination kick in.

How to Overcome Procrastination: Toward Creative Productivity

These are just a few examples of how modern culture is heterogeneous. Contradictions between its elements lead to contradictions in personal beliefs, resulting in internal conflict, disorientation, and procrastination. So how can we solve this problem?

The way out of the hamster wheel of procrastination and toward productivity lies in a creative approach. One interpretation of productivity is that a person creates themselves and their life. Philosopher Hannah Arendt, citing Karl Marx, expressed this idea.

The personality itself becomes a creative product, meaning that from the chaos of modern culture, it’s possible to construct your own worldview. Today, we have access to the experiences of past generations, information, and freedom of choice—tools for building personal beliefs. A conscious approach helps us use these tools, identify internal contradictions, and create a worldview that fits our own needs.

It’s also worth mentioning metamodernism and metaxy-psychology, which is based on it. The root “meta” means “between” and points to the possibility of avoiding the opposition of polar worldviews.

Metamodernist thinkers introduced the concept of oscillation—shifting between opposing positions. Oscillation rejects rigid choices and allows us to move between extremes depending on the situation.

• Should you prioritize achievement or pleasure? At one moment, the desire for achievement makes you forgo pleasure, but later, the delayed result brings satisfaction, and pleasure comes to the forefront.
• Should you listen to reason or feelings? Sensory or rational perception is appropriate depending on the situation. In any case, feelings highlight important events, guide our attention, and direct our thinking.

“For psychology, metamodernism becomes a more nuanced tool for analyzing subjectivity, creating analytical constructs that show how the visible world can be configured differently each time.”

In other words, the visible world doesn’t freeze in mental constructs but constantly changes configuration. Culture, when creatively reinterpreted, stops being a set of rigid norms and becomes material from which the individual creates themselves and their creative output. This flexible, ever-changing process helps us avoid getting stuck in the rut of procrastination and move toward our own productivity.