Procrastination: I'm going to stop putting things off, starting tomorrow!

Sounding almost like a joke, or perhaps it's just stating the obvious, but a University of Calgary study on the subject of procrastination states that:

"Continued research into procrastination should not be delayed..."

Even funnier, as Science Daily quips, it only took the author of the study ten years to publish his work.

The problem with procrastination of course is that "Hard work pays off tomorrow, procrastination pays off today." That can be a tough tendency to fight.

Quips aside, the study concluded that procrastination is not the result of perfectionism. A lack of confidence in the ability to succeed is more often than not the root cause of putting off today what can be done tomorrow.

"Essentially, procrastinators have less confidence in themselves, less expectancy that they can actually complete a task," Steel [the study's author] says. "Perfectionism is not the culprit. In fact, perfectionists actually procrastinate less, but they worry about it more."

In addition to lack of confidence, procrastination can be the result of task aversiveness, impulsiveness, distractibility, and how much a person is motivated to achieve.

According to Steel:

"The old saying is true: Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're probably right. And as you get better at self control, your expectancy about whether you can resist goes up and thus improves your ability to resist.

Note: the quote in the title is from Sam Levenson. Other quotes on procrastination can be found here.