Have trouble with procrastination? Yeah, me too.
This week, I was going to write about how to know whether it’s time to quit your job. But I’m going to write instead about procrastination, because it’s a real problem for me. In fact, I’ve been putting off writing this until the very last minute.
Like many people, my procrastination habit was birthed during college. There’s way too much fun to be had—parties, being stupid with your friends, being a founding member of a knitting club called Anarchy Deathsticks even though knitting makes you irrationally angry—to spend time actually doing classwork.
But as I spent my evenings drinking Black Cherry Cruzan Rum straight from the bottle and having rage blackouts from trying to knit, the coursework piled up. So eventually, I had to buckle down and do my astronomy homework and write my 10-page papers about the theology of snake-handling faith healers.
I could do whole projects in a night, if I really tried. Two, if I could get my shit together enough to get started that early. But even then, I knew it wasn’t my best work. And I’m still ashamed about how much I phoned it in.
Why do we procrastinate?
Procrastination comes from a whole host of thoughts and feelings you carry around about yourself and your abilities. There’s a framework laid out by Linda Sapadin and Jack Maguire (non-affiliate link, and I encourage you to buy used books!) in their book It’s about time: The 6 styles of procrastination and how to beat them.
Here are the 6 types of procrastinators:
The anxious types:
The Worrier: Won’t start because they fear they won’t succeed
The Perfectionist: Afraid of being less than excellent at what they try to do
The Over-Doer: Committed to too many things and can’t prioritize well
The bored and frustrated types:
The Crisis-Maker: Needs a rush of stress, pressure, and fear to get started
The Dreamer: Thinks everything should be easy because work bores or frustrates them
The Defier: Believes that the task isn’t a worthwhile use of time, so they stall
You’re not necessarily just one kind of procrastinator. It’ll change over time and as you face different tasks.
For writing this post, I was a combo of Perfectionist (worrying you won’t think I’m giving you useful info) and Dreamer (a false thought that writing is boring, even though it’s one of my favorite things in the world to do). But when I have to do stuff like get my car inspected, I’m a textbook Defier because I think car inspections are stupid.
What does this have to do with work?
A ton. A great way to mess up at work is to procrastinate. When you put off a task week after week, it’s bound to not get done. And when your work doesn’t get done, your boss gets mad, your image suffers, and you get put on the list for the next round of firings.
For job seekers, procrastination delays finding your next role. Employed job searchers stay stuck in a position that’s overworking them, underpaying them, or otherwise making them unhappy. Unemployed people putting off job search tasks face a cascade of issues, including financial stress, long resume gaps, and succumbing to pessimism.
So what do you do when you’re a procrastinator and want to change?
Self-reflection is the first step.
Dealing with procrastination when you want to keep your job
If you’re procrastinating at work and want to keep working there, ask yourself these questions:
What kinds of projects do I avoid? Which ones do I jump on?
Do I always figure out how to get things done eventually, or do I leave work undone?
Are there cultural or environmental influences on your procrastination habits (i.e., sluggish timelines, unhappy coworkers, distracting office space)?
What consequences do you face when you put off work?
Understanding what your habits and challenges are gives you insight into how to make changes.
If you need someone to help you through the questions or make an action plan for improving your procrastination, set up time to chat with me.
Dealing with procrastination when you want to leave your job or need to find a new one
It’s gonna take a while to find a new job. Light a fire under your butt by asking yourself these questions:
How do you think finding a job should go? How is that fantasy different from the reality of job searching in 2025?
What scares you most about looking for a job?
Where are you spending time instead of doing the active work of networking and applying (hint: it’s probably doomscrolling)?
How are you handling the pressure of knowing that it’ll take a lot of time to get even one interview?
If you spend some time really examining your thoughts about job searching, I bet you’ll learn a lot about how you can get yourself going in the right direction.
Of course, it can be a lot to handle on your own. That’s what I’m here for.
How did I overcome my own procrastination to write this post?
I felt the time crunch (classic Crisis-Maker move) and also decided that I just needed to get started, even if it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping it’d be (which meant I got over my Perfectionist side, if only for a couple hours).
Let me know if this was as helpful to read as it was for me to write. Or if you have questions about Anarchy Deathsticks. I’m happy to talk about either.
