Not all procrastination is created equal: The buffering effect of productive procrastination

Procrastination has long been viewed as detrimental to subjective well-being and task performance. However, recent research challenges this view, suggesting that procrastination can be adaptive in certain contexts. We introduce a new definition of procrastination, as the voluntary delay of an intended course of action that one believes one both could and should do. In doing so, we distinguish between productive procrastination—replacing one goal-related task with another goal-related task that is lower priority—and unproductive procrastination. We theorize that productive procrastination is less harmful to subjective well-being and task performance, because it retains active engagement in goal-related (albeit off-task) activities. Adopting an integrative data analysis approach to synthesize results across studies, we tested the effect of different procrastination styles on subjective well-being and task performance across 21 studies and 4,864 participants. We find that although unproductive procrastination impairs both subjective well-being and task performance, productive procrastination does not. These effects emerged consistently across cross-sectional (Study Set 1; k = 11 studies), longitudinal (Study Sets 2 & 3; k = 5 studies), and experimental studies (Study Sets 4 & 5; k = 5 studies), and spanned a variety of life domains, including work, school, and health behaviors. These findings suggest that not all forms of procrastination are maladaptive; productive procrastination can be adaptive with few adverse consequences. Rather than being inherently harmful, procrastination is context-dependent with its outcomes shaped by how, when, and why people procrastinate.