Content uploaded by Joel Anderson
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Joel Anderson on Feb 09, 2019
Content may be subject to copyright.
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7 All rights reserved. 43
CHAPTER 3
Structured Nonprocrastination:
Scaffolding Efforts to Resist
the Temptation to Reconstrue
Unwarranted Delay
Joel Anderson
Ethics Institute, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht,
The Netherlands
INTRODUCTION
Despite its familiarity, procrastination is a strange phenomenon. This is due,
in large part, to the fact that it involves doing something that one knows
at some level to be foolish. Procrastinators participate in their own self-
undermining knowingly, not inadvertently or because they genuinely for-
got about a deadline. Indeed, if delay is to count as procrastination at all, it
must meet something parallel to the mens rea (guilty mind) standard used
in jurisprudence.a This means that procrastination is something that can be
attributed only to those who are struggling with the irrationality of their
delay. This is a matter of definition. Just as self-deceivers know, at some level,
that what they want to believe is not really supported by the evidence,
procrastinators are nagged by a sense that they cannot legitimately defend
putting things off any longer. If one had no awareness of doing anything
wrong—and could not reasonably have been expected to have developed
that awareness—then the term “procrastination” does not apply.
Many discussions of procrastination downplay the extent to which pro-
crastination is intentional, and there is room for disagreement or, at least,
qualifications. But there is an important reason for emphasizing this mens
rea dimension, for it highlights the importantly cognitive or epistemic aspect
of many procrastinators’ internal struggle: their motivated attempts to avoid
candidly acknowledging how counterproductive their delay is, often by
These proofs may contain colour figures. Those figures may print black and white in the final printed book if a colour
print product has not been planned. The colour figures will appear in colour in all electronic versions of this book.
a
The full phrase is usually, “actus reus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea,” or “the act is not culpable
unless the mind is guilty.” For a discussion of some of the related complexities, see, for ex-
ample, Alexander & Kessler (1997) and Cane (2000).
p0010
p0015
fn0010
st0020
c0015
C0015_web.indd 43 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being
44
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
reconstruing what they are doing as not actually procrastination. This focus
opens up room for investigating the role of self-licensing and neutralization
techniques in the etiology and persistence of procrastination. Furthermore,
this focus on procrastinators’ motivated strategies for managing their con-
flicted self-knowledge sheds new light on potential strategies for reducing
procrastination, in particular, strategies that involve structuring or restruc-
turing one’s situation in ways that support one’s better self (and more honest
self) in these internal struggles.
Many readers may object to the seemingly moralistic and judgmental
connotations of speaking of the “mens rea” dimension of procrastination.
There has even been a strong undercurrent in recent discussions of pro-
crastination that challenges the very idea that procrastination is necessar-
ily something bad at all (Chu & Choi, 2005). And it is with one of these
attempts that I begin, namely, John Perry’s (1995) advocacy of “structured
procrastination.” Indeed the title of the present essay is meant to flag both a
debt and a disagreement in connection with Perry’s essay—perhaps the most
widely read essay on procrastination, “Structured Procrastination,” which he
subsequently developed into a short book (Perry, 2012). Perry has eloquent-
ly discussed the importance of structures to being productive, highlighting
the various ways in which our situation shapes and channels our ability to
resist the temptation to put off aversive tasks. However, his approach is also
symptomatic of a tendency to downplay the mens rea dimension of procras-
tination and, as a consequence, to fail to distinguish procrastination from
unproblematic forms of delay (a tendency even more pronounced in work
on so-called “active procrastination” (Chu & Choi, 2005). This has the fur-
ther effect of hiding from view the important array of strategies that can be
taken to reduce procrastination by altering one’s environment, for example,
so as to achieve important health goals.
In the following theoretical and philosophical reflections, I use Perry’s
suggestions as a point of departure for making three points. First, I of-
fer an analysis of the “mens rea” character of procrastination, as including
a self-critical awareness of “unwarranted delay” in the definition of pro-
crastination. Second, I develop a proposal to focus on self-licensing and
neutralization techniques as part of the etiology of much procrastination,
as self-indulgent attempts protect one’s positive self-appraisal by reconstru-
ing one’s delay as unproblematic. Third, I build on my earlier work on the
“extended will” (Anderson & Kamphorst, 2015; Heath & Anderson, 2010)
to suggest that one way of reducing procrastination is by establishing struc-
tures that counteract one’s attempts at self-licensing. In this sense, I propose
p0020
p0025
C0015_web.indd 44 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Structured Nonprocrastination 45
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
to replace the focus on structured procrastination with one a structural
nonprocrastination.
HOW NOT TO BE MISLED BY “STRUCTURED
PROCRASTINATION”
In 1995 the Stanford philosopher John Perry posted to the web a short
piece entitled “Structured Procrastination.” In that essay, Perry describes
how people can actually be very productive by structuring their to-do lists
in such a way that the aversion against doing the task at the top of the list
can serve to raise one’s level of productivity on other tasks on the list. The
idea is that a nagging task can facilitate one’s happily completing a whole
range of activities that one is motivated to do only because it is less aversive
than the nagging task. As he puts it, “the procrastinator can be motivated
to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way
of not doing something that is seemingly more important. Structured pro-
crastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way
that exploits this fact” (Perry, 1995). The sort of example he has in mind are
familiar academic tasks such as writing referee reports or letters of recom-
mendation.
Perry’s discussion of the phenomenon is lighthearted and even whim-
sical, both in the original essay and the subsequent book (Per r y, 2012),
but there are actually several quite subtle and important points that he
is making. The first point is that by structuring our environment, we can
improve outcomes, particularly in situations in which we are not fully in
control of our actions. As I shall put the point later, by putting in place
scaffolding for ourselves, we can extend our powers of will to carry us
through cases in which our capacities for self-regulation fail us. The thing
to note, however, is that when Perry speaks of “structured procrastina-
tion,” he is actually not making any recommendations for how to reduce
one’s procrastination; he pretty much takes it for granted that those who
benefit from his recommended strategy are not employing the structures
to reduce the actual procrastination, but merely to minimize the damage.
By continuing to get something done, “structured procrastinators” both
mitigate the loss of productivity and provide some support for the indi-
vidual’s motivation and self-efficacy (on the latter concept, see, eg, Ban-
dura, 1995, 2004).
This last point plays a central role in the more developed account found
in Perry’s book, The Art of Procrastination Perry (2012). There, the regular
p0030
p0035
p0040
st0025
C0015_web.indd 45 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being
46
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
theme is that procrastinators should avoid beating themselves up about
their procrastination and that it is easier to do this when one can point to
the beneficial results that one has achieved while procrastinating—apart-
ment cleaned, emails answered, books alphabetized, and so forth. In many
ways, this is an important point about avoiding the vicious cycle of demo-
tivating self-incrimination. It even has some resonances with recent work
on self-compassion (Sirois, 2014), with one important difference: mindful
acknowledgment of one’s failure to meet one’s intentions plays no part in
Perry’s account, although it is central to the form of mindfulness usually
involved in procrastination-reducing forms of self-compassion (Sirois &
Pychyl, 2013).
And this is where a central misgiving arises about Perry’s discussion
of structured procrastination. It is formulated in a way that suggests that
structured procrastination is, on balance, a good productivity strategy that
is preferable to addressing the procrastination itself. I want to be clear on
this point. I think that Perry is careful to avoid this in the actual text, but
he also displays a penchant for highlighting the paradoxical benefits of self-
deception in this connection. Moreover, it is a very tempting message: if
you stop thinking of yourself negatively, as a procrastinator, you will find
yourself getting a lot done. And that does start to sound like a strategy of
encouraging self-deception and acceptance of one’s tendency to procrasti-
nate. Particularly when combined with the attraction held by advocates of
the claim that there are phenomena such as “active procrastination” (Chu
& Choi, 2005) that are actually highly effective approaches to getting things
done, it becomes clear that this is a domain in which one needs to be very
careful about how the concepts are being defined and used.
Ultimately, it is an empirical question whether there are not indeed
some individuals who get more done if they convince themselves by ap-
proaching matters in the ways Perry suggests. But there is also something
inherently unstable about the strategy, in that it requires that one think of
what the tasks one engages in as both not the tasks one should be engag-
ing in and, at the same time, the tasks that one should be engaging in, since
otherwise one would be getting nothing done. Moreover, this last point
raises questions about whether one’s overall pattern of behavior can even
count as procrastination, particularly the more one endorses the strategy as
leading to the greatest overall productivity. Indeed, if we are to avoid being
misled by Perry’s discussion of structured procrastination, it is important to
get clear on the definition of procrastination, something that Perry refrains
from doing.
p0045
p0050
C0015_web.indd 46 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Structured Nonprocrastination 47
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
DEFINING PROCRASTINATION AS CULPABLY
UNWARRANTED DELAY
There are numerous definitions of procrastination, yet most of the essential
aspects can be captured concisely in the phrase “culpably unwarranted delay.”
In other words, procrastination involves choosing to put a task off to a later
point in time, even though (1) there are overridingly good reasons not to
put things off (the delay is “unwarranted”) and (2) there are no circum-
stances that excuse one either for failing to appreciate these reasons or for
failing to act. Each of the three components in this definition merits brief
elaboration.b
Delay, to begin with the most obvious point, is a necessary component
of procrastination. This means not only that someone who procrastinates
fails to do something that she previously intended to do, but it also requires
that she has not given up entirely on completing the task. Deciding not
to do something ever is not procrastination, no matter how irrational or
self-defeating this decision is. [Anecdotally, it is actually quite characteristic
of procrastinators that they are unwilling to acknowledge that their inten-
tion to do something “someday/maybe” is rather “anemic” (Allen, 2015;
Stroud, 2010)]. Note further that delaying a task needs to be distinguished
from departing from a scheduled time. Schedules and deadlines are means
of making explicit and specific our temporal intentions, but we can delay
doing something even if we have rather vague plans for doing something.
For a person’s behavior to count as delay, it must depart significantly from
the intention and it must be possible to attribute to the individual an in-
tention to actually do something to advance a goal. Someone who had a
strong desire to climb Mt. Everest but never did anything to advance that
goal would not count as procrastinating, as long as one never moved from
fantasizing to planning.
The second requirement of procrastination is that the delay be
“unwarranted.”c Not all delay is procrastination [Conceptualization and
Operationalization of Delay: Development and Validation of the Multifac-
eted measure of Academic Procrastination and the Delay Questionnaire
(Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada;
Q1
b I should note that I am here not considering approaches to defining procrastination in ter ms
of what the symptomology, that is, on the basis of criteria that stem from a particular pattern
in the typical symptoms, treatment options, and/or etiology.
c My use of the phrase “warrant” owes a great deal to Toulmin (1964), who analyzes reasons
as supported by “warrant” and “backing.”
p0055
p0060
p0065
fn0015
fn0020
st0030
C0015_web.indd 47 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being
48
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
Pychyl, 2013]. Sometimes our plans need adjustment and our intentions re-
quire updating in the wake of changing circumstances. Thus, any definition
of procrastination must make clear the sense in which the relevant delay is
problematic. There are various other terms that are used in the literature:
such as “needless” [Conceptualization and Operationalization of Delay: De-
velopment and Validation of the Multifaceted measure of Academic Pro-
crastination and the Delay Questionnaire (Unpublished doctoral disserta-
tion). Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada; Steel, 2007] or “without valid
reasons” (see chapter: Bedtime Procrastination: A Behavioral Perspective on
Sleep Insufficiencyd). For example, in typical cases of health procrastination,
this is a matter of being worse off as a result of the delay. Even if one does
get around to exercising more or gets the recommended medical tests done
or reduces one’s sodium intake, one would have been much better off if
one had started earlier. Of course, one cannot do everything at once, and
sometimes we choose delay so as to do other things first. When that is the
case—we are better off on balance by delaying the task—and then it is clear
that we are speaking of strategic delay, not procrastination.
There are several further points to note about this requirement. First,
delay is still unwarranted if, unexpectedly, things work out for the better.
Someone who puts off making an appointment to have medical tests done
would still count as procrastinating, even if the delay ends up resulting in
improved treatment because a new apparatus arrived at the clinic only later.
Conversely, it might be warranted to delay mowing the lawn because a se-
vere thunderstorm is predicted during the next hour, even if it never ends
up raining. It is only the foreseeable consequences that matter.
Second, the assessments of how warranted a delay is should ultimately be
based on considerations internal to the procrastinator’s values and life-plans.
For those who authentically prefer thrills to stability, or social solidarity to
their individual well-being, some instances of delay will be warranted for
some that would not be for others who do not share these values. Otherwise,
labeling behavior procrastination becomes indistinguishable from advocating
substantive values, under the guise of a psychological category. Procrasti-
nation does violate social norms, but even obnoxious lateness is not pro-
crastination unless it involves procrastinators thwarting the pursuit of their
Q2
d Note that, although the definition of bedtime procrastination that my coauthors and I
provide in chapter: Bedtime Procrastination: A Behavioral Perspective on Sleep Insuffi-
ciency focuses less on the issue of mens rea, both definitions are intended to cover the same
phenomena.
p0070
p0075
fn0025
C0015_web.indd 48 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Structured Nonprocrastination 49
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
own goals. This is not, however, to deny that individuals may be temporarily
confused about what their values are, and this introduces significant com-
plications—which I cannot address here, but which deserve further atten-
tion—into attempts to adjudicate whether someone’s delay is unwarranted.
Third, although what makes delay unwarranted is typically that it makes
someone foreseeably worse off, there are cases of procrastination in which
it does not. In “Buridan’s ass cases,” there may be no reasons to do one of
two tasks before the other, but one has simply decided to do task A before
task B. Having formed this intention, the burden of proof shifts, such that
putting off task A to do task B without a reason for doing so does count as
unwarranted delay, even though one would not be better off as a result of
doing the tasks in one sequence rather the other. This is because there is an
irrational failure of will involved in not sticking to one’s plan or resolution
(Bratman, 1987; Holton, 2004).
Finally, it is particularly important to emphasize that the sense is which
delay is unwarranted is also the sense in which it is the basis for negative
self-appraisal. When delay is unwarranted, it is not that it is done “for no
particular reason” but rather that it is foolish, for one is failing to do what
one should do. The guilt and shame associated with procrastination (see
chapter: Procrastination, Emotion Regulation, and Well-Being) may some-
times take on problematic and counterproductive forms, such that mindful
self-compassion becomes an important part of responding to procrastina-
tion (Sirois, 2014). But these emotions are nonetheless a clear indication
that doing what one has reason not to do is grounds for judging oneself
negatively.
A third condition—culpability—is required to account for cases of un-
warranted delay that do not count as procrastination. In part, this is needed
to accommodate cases in which the delay is outside of one’s control. Many
of these cases are, however, already covered by the requirement that circum-
stance provide no warrant for delay [for a discussion of “inevitable delay,”
see Conceptualization and Operationalization of Delay: Development and
Validation of the Multifaceted measure of Academic Procrastination and the
Delay Questionnaire (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Carleton Univer-
sity, Ottawa, Canada]. But there is a further dimension that is particularly
relevant to the mens rea analysis developed here, in that the starting point for
attributing “procrastination” to individuals is that they themselves have the
sense that there is insufficient warrant for their delaying a task. If they have
genuinely lost track of a deadline or they sincerely believe that it would be
prudent to delay, then they are not really procrastinating.
p0080
p0085
p0090
C0015_web.indd 49 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being
50
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
The difficulty comes in, of course, with the fact that people are quite
good at deceiving themselves in these matters, and this is where the parallel
with the legal discussions of mens rea is useful, where discussions of subjec-
tive and objective standards of assessment figure prominently (Alexander &
Kessler, 1997). Consider Jane, whom the police arrest for driving a stolen car.
Jane insists that she thought it was her car. At first blush, she is not likely to
convince a jury to accept this as proving her innocence, unless it turns out
that her identical new car was parked on the same street, in a town where
everyone leaves the keys in the ignition. Then it becomes conceivable that
what she was doing was not actually stealing a car. It depends on whether she
could have known that it was not her car and should have paid closer attention, s ay,
to the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. Thus, even if she honest-
ly did not think of herself as stealing, she might have been culpably ignorant.
The same point holds for cases of procrastination. If Freddy delays start-
ing work on a grant application because he genuinely believes that he
“works better under pressure,” it could be argued that he is not actually
procrastinating but merely strategically delaying and thus has nothing to
blame himself for. Whether this is the case, however, is decided neither by
his conviction nor the objective results of his strategy but rather what he
could have reasonably been held accountable for taking into consideration.
For Freddy’s delay to count as procrastination, it must be the case that one
could have known that things were going to turn out worse (and also that
he was engaging in delay). In other words, the unwarranted delay must be
culpable, in the sense developed in the mens rea standard and elaborated fur-
ther in contemporary work in “virtue epistemology” (for an overview, see
Fairweather & Zagzebski, 2001).
Suppose that Freddy’s “I-work-best-under-pressure” strategy is a colos-
sal failure. The quality of his work suffers, and he consistently regrets boxing
himself in with regard to deadlines. To determine whether he is procrasti-
nating, we must ask whether he can be held responsible for not seeing these
problems coming, especially if it happens repeatedly. And this is where the
opportunity opens up for Freddy to ignore the evidence that suggests that
the delay is not strategic but unwarranted. The issue comes back again to
whether he could be reasonably expected to have a mens rea.
The parallel with self-deception underscores the point. For a cuckolded
husband’s belief in his wife’s faithfulness to count as self-deception, what
matters is not that his beliefs are objectively false—he may have no need
to be deceiving himself but still do it—but rather that he participates in
undermining the veracity of his self-knowledge. Similarly, in the case of
p0095
p0100
p0105
p0110
C0015_web.indd 50 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Structured Nonprocrastination 51
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
procrastination, Freddy’s delay counts as procrastination only if he is cul-
pable for failing to see that the delay is unwarranted.
What is to be gained from this discussion of how to define procrastina-
tion? There are plenty of definitions of procrastination [see the papers in
Andreou & White, 2010; see also the metaanalysis by Steel, 2007 and, for
the most recent review, Conceptualization and Operationalization of De-
lay: Development and Validation of the Multifaceted measure of Academic
Procrastination and the Delay Questionnaire (Unpublished doctoral disser-
tation). Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada], and I am not claiming here
that “culpably unwarranted delay” is the only useful definition (see, on the
general futility of the search for a single correct definition, Anderson, 2014). My
suggestion is merely that the definition developed here captures the sense
in which procrastinators’ own view of their behavior is partly constitutive
of the behavior counting as procrastination. This duplicity toward oneself
is a key aspect of the phenomenon, and crucially involves seeing what one
is doing as a basis for judging oneself negatively. And this sense that pro-
crastinators know themselves to be undermining themselves gets lost when
it is suggested that procrastination can sometimes be a prudent or healthy
strategy (Chu & Choi, 2005; as well as, to some extent, Perry, 1995).
SELFINDULGENT RECONSTRUALS
Once it is clear that procrastination, as culpably unwarranted delay, involves
a mens rea (guilty mind), important aspects of the phenomenon and sig-
nificant opportunities for intervention come into view. In particular, the
suppression of negative self-assessment takes on an important role in ex-
plaining how people go ahead with procrastination. Since considering one’s
behavior to be unwarranted delay is a threat to one’s positive self-appraisal
and on the assumption that humans have a strong underlying desire to
think well of themselves, those tempted to procrastinate have basically two
options: procrastinate less or find some way of insulating oneself from the
charge of procrastination. On the first scenario, we get the explanation of
self-regulation in terms of being successfully motivated by the fear of loss to
one’s self-image. This is a massively significant source of norm-conforming
behavior and self-regulation. People frequently avoid all sorts of problematic
behaviors or persist with aversive tasks because they do not want to be a
“quitter” or a “cheat” or a “coward” (see Heath, 2008a, especially Chapter
3 on “deontic constraint”; this is also part of a social psychological perspec-
tive presented in chapter: Delaying Things and Feeling Bad About It? A
p0115
p0120
st0035
C0015_web.indd 51 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being
52
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
Norm-Based Approach to Examining Shame and Guilt Following Procras-
tination, and which deserves much further study).
My focus, unsurprisingly, is on the second of these options, on the vari-
ous ways in which procrastinators avoid the truth about what they are doing,
a truth that they are aware of at some level. Procrastinators let themselves
believe things that they know are not true. This is another way in which
procrastination involves “giving in to feel good” (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013; Tice
& Bratslavsky, 2000). By reconstruing the situation in a way that distorts it,
procrastinators can preserve a positive self-appraisal. They can delay while
still thinking that they are not one of those lazy people who procrastinates
all the time. If they are successful in this, they can develop a self-indulgent
reconstrual that makes their delay appear reasonable, at least at some level.
At the same time, like the cuckolded husband who keeps coming up with
alternative explanations for his wife’s absences and the scent of unfamiliar
cologne, there is an unpalatable truth that procrastinators cannot entirely
eliminate (mens rea), but are hell-bent on denying.
Compelling analyses of this self-protective strategy have been developed
in the criminology literature on neutralization techniques (Copes, Vieraitis,
& Jochum, 2007; Maruna & Copes, 2005; Sykes & Matza, 1957) and the so-
cial psychology literature on self-licensing (Blanken, van de Ven, & Zeelen-
berg, 2015; De Witt Huberts, Evers, & De Ridder, 2011), which examine
ways of protecting one’s positive self-image by providing an account of
one’s actions as justified or at least excused.e These techniques or strategies
e There is some confusion generated by the term “justification” as it is used in the behavioral
sciences. Ordinarily, when we say that someone is “justified” in believing something, we are
saying that they have good reasons for believing it, at least on basis of the available evidence
(Gettier, 1963). Scott & Lyman (1968) introduced the usage of “justifications” and “excuses”
into the sociological literature (drawing on work of the philosopher of language and law J.
L. Austin) that can be summarized as follows:
[Justifications are] ‘accounts in which one accepts responsibility for the act in question, but
denies the pejorative quality associated with it’ (Scott and Lyman, 1968:47). Conversely,
with excuses, ‘one admits that the act in question is bad, wrong, or inappropriate but denies
full responsibility’ (Scott and Lyman, 1968:47). In offering an excuse, one maintains that
the deviant act was regrettable, but that it could not be helped (Copelton, 2007).
The terms were intended to refer to attempts to get others to accept the appropriateness of
one’s actions, rather than successful demonstrations of the appropriateness of one”s actions.
This is particularly important to keep in mind when discussing “justifying something to
oneself.” One might very easily succeed in this task, even when it is decidedly not the case
that one has justified the action, in the sense of having truly vindicated it on the basis of
good reasons. This background provides another reason for preferring “unwarranted” over
“unjustified” or “unexcused” in defining procrastination.
p0125
p0130
fn0030
C0015_web.indd 52 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Structured Nonprocrastination 53
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
have a great deal in common with strategies found to reduce cognitive
dissonance (eg, Gosling, Denizeau, & Oberlé, 2006; see also Little & Py-
chyl, 2015; Sirois, 2004). In their pioneering work on neutralization theory,
for example, criminologists Sykes and Matza identified five techniques that
criminals uses to “neutralize” their actions: denial of responsibility, denial of
injury, denial of victim, condemning the condemners, and appeal to higher
loyalties. As Sykes and Matza emphasize, these self-serving reconstruals of
the actions can be understood not only as a way of managing guilt after-
wards but also as ways of neutralizing them in advance, dimming the light
of one’s conscience with regard to actions that one is contemplating do-
ing (Heath, 2008b). The criminals they discussed were particularly adept at
reconstruing their transgressions in ways that rationalized them, explained
them away, or relativized the amount of harm involved. As a result, the
constraining reins of conscience were loosened, making it possible to give
in to temptation without nearly as much guilt. And the key implication is
that the more difficulty these criminals would have had in self-indulgently
reconstruing the transgressions they contemplated as minor or excused, the
stronger their incentive not to break the law.
Similar analyses have been developed in a wide range of other cases,
including unethical consumption practices (Chatzidakis, Hibbert, Mittusis,
& Smith, 2010) and overeating (De Witt Huberts et al., 2011). The term
often used here is “self-licensing,” which can also include cases in which
one feels entitled to indulging in questionable activities because of hav-
ing done something particularly virtuous. My interest here, however, is in
the particular form of what one might term self-indulgent reconstruals, in
which one develops an account of one’s action that serves to make it appear
justified or excused. And here, too, we would expect that the more difficult
it is to succeed in licensing one’s transgressions, the stronger their incentive
to stick to one’s best intentions.
EXTENDING THE WILL TO RESIST SELFINDULGENT
RECONSTRUAL
The foregoing suggests that a key determinant of whether someone procras-
tinates will be whether they succumb to the temptation to self-indulgently
reconstrue their unwarranted delay as either justified or excused. Seen in
this way, successful self-regulation is likely to depend on the availability
of opportunities for self-indulgent reconstrual and the extent of an indi-
vidual’s resources for resisting the temptation to engage in these strategies
p0135
p0140
st0040
C0015_web.indd 53 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being
54
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
for neutralizing the thought that one is engaging in unwarranted delay. The
point is subtle, however, because it operates indirectly, but the idea is that
one can reduce procrastination by resisting the temptation to remove some-
thing that itself inhibits procrastination, namely, the awareness that what one
is contemplating is indeed unwarranted delay.
One way in which research on procrastination can shed light on this
is by identifying the skills, cognitive strategies, and personality types that
enable individuals to effectively resist temptations to self-indulgently re-
construe unwarranted delay as something other than it is (for a review, see
Steel, 2007). A good upbringing and a strong conscience are a big part of
this. Conscientiousness or neuroticism are likely to have a significant impact
on the willingness to resist such self-indulgent reconstruals, although these
traits would work for and against the individual, respectively.
These internal psychological strategies are dependent on often-limited
psychological resources (Baumeister & Tierney, 2011). My interest here,
however, is in research on structured nonprocrastination, that is, on how the
environment can be structured to facilitate self-regulation, in this case by
strengthening individuals’ capacity to resist inclination to self-indulgently
reconstrue one’s behavior as not really unwarranted delay. The idea is that
once it becomes clear that a central dimension of procrastination involves
self-indulgent reconstruals, it becomes clear that strategies designed to block
the possibilities of reconstrual can count as effective means for reducing
self-regulation failure. In other words, restricting possibilities for reconstrual
helps potential procrastinators by keeping up the pressure to conform to
what they know, at some level, to be true.
In earlier work, I have discussed “structures” of this sort in terms of vari-
ous ways in which one’s ability to engage in self-regulation is supported by
features of the environment that “extend” one’s will (Anderson & Kam-
phorst, 2015; Heath & Anderson, 2010). For example, if it is important to
me to go for a run first thing every morning, I can increase my chances of
success by laying out everything I need so that it is ready when I get up first
thing in the morning and by subscribing to an afternoon rather a morn-
ing newspaper. Or if I know that I am going to be tempted to overeat at a
holiday dinner, I can enlist the help of a another guest to “run interference”
for me when the hostess is putting pressure on me to eat or drink more.
There are even more dramatic ways of using the environments as a precom-
mitment mechanism, such as removing all alcohol from the house if one
is struggling with an alcohol abuse problem (Elster, 2000; Schelling, 2006;
Ariely & Wertenbroch, 2002).
p0145
p0150
p0155
C0015_web.indd 54 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Structured Nonprocrastination 55
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
In the “extended mind” literature (Clark & Chalmers, 1998; Clark, 2008),
the central idea is that capacities that are usually thought to operate entirely
“within the head” (eg, doing arithmetic) can be partly carried out by pro-
cesses that essentially involve being “coupled” with the environment (eg,
by using an abacus). The same point can be made for how one’s “extended
will” can resist the temptation to procrastination (Heath & Anderson, 2010)
or, in the cases under discussion, to transform tendencies to engage in self-
indulgent reconstruals of either the fact that one is delaying or, more fre-
quently, the fact that the delay is unwarranted.
In developing an analysis of the capacity to resist the temptation to
engage in procrastination-facilitating reconstruals that can be supported by
scaffolding structures, the first step is to identify the internal capacities. The
subsequent step is then to identify ways in which “coupling” with structure
in one’s environment enables greater success in resisting that temptation.
In exploring these possibilities, I organize the discussion in terms of three
broad areas: attention, motivation, and judgment. There are certainly other
components of resisting self-indulgent reconstruals, but I focus on these
three here, looking both at how structures can make accurate self-appraisal
more attractive or can block the path to self-indulgent reappraisals.
In the next section, then, I provide several illustrations of how this analy-
sis might work, both as a set of preliminary suggestions for how structures
might support self-regulation in this particular way and as a hypothesis re-
garding the etiology of procrastination. Further empirical work needs to be
done to validate the suggestions provided here.
STRUCTURES THAT SUPPORT ATTENTION,
MOTIVATION, AND JUDGMENT
Attention
I begin with capacities for attention. One of the most straightforward ways
in which procrastinators deceive themselves about their transgression is by
putting it out of mind, or letting it slip out of mind. Although it certainly
happens that people genuinely forget about an intended task, procrastinators
are best thought of as having a more complex awareness of the task. Given
the requirement of mens rea, they are conscious, at some level, of the com-
mitment and the deadlines, and one of the main challenges lies in finding
a way to resist or block the temptation to ignore the evidence. The capac-
ity for focused attention, then, is crucial in keeping the tasks “before one’s
mind,” something that is particularly difficult when one is ego-depleted (eg,
p0160
p0165
p0170
p0175
st0045
st0050
C0015_web.indd 55 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being
56
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
Baumeister, 2002). This applies to everything from the basic awareness of
how much time remains before a deadline to an ability to track multiple
tasks in a complex project.
The structures that can buttress our attention are diverse, and many are
very familiar. By placing clocks, calendars, and datebooks clearly within
view, we can make it more difficult to fool ourselves about whether or
not we are delaying. These may seem like trivial examples, but their role
is profound, particularly once it becomes clear that they function only in
combination with a sufficiently specific schedule of the task (Lay, 2014).
To perceive the relevance of what the clock reveals, it often helps to have
a rather specific point in time already worked out. The greatest possibility
for making improvements here, however, likely lie with the specificity of
the time for initiating various activities and a schedule for each step of the
complex process. This is a point that is well known to anyone involved in
planning large-scale projects; staying on track crucially involves working
out in advance what the component parts are within a complex project
and what the specific milestones are along the way. In this way, formulating
specific plans is part of the preparatory process by which individuals can
buttress their attentional resources.
Consider, for example, Lay’s (2014) recent discussions of scheduling.
The better one’s capacities of judgment in setting schedules and deadlines
for oneself, the more one can avoid situations of inappropriately unclear
deadlines. As Bratman (1987) emphasizes in his discussion of the planning
theory of agency, plans need to have a degree of flexibility under changing
circumstances, but it is also the case about settling on clear deadlines and
tasks for when one intends to be completing tasks helps to avoid opening
up the problematic flexibility that can open the door to reconstruing delay
as something other than that.
To take an illustration from the context of health, consider Gary, who
has noticed that he has been getting colds quite frequently and thinks that it
would be good to make an appointment with a primary care physician soon
to get some medical tests done. And yet, he finds himself putting it off. Gary
thinks of himself as conscientious and certainly not someone who would
fail to take care of himself, particularly given that he has a young family. As
he considers, at a certain point, whether to phone the doctor or put it off
for a day, the lack of specificity in his intention affords him plenty of wiggle
room for thinking that he is still going make the appointment “soon” [see
Stroud’s (2010) discussion of “anemic intentions”]. In such contexts, by en-
tering into his calendar a specific time for making the call and an automatic
p0180
p0185
p0190
C0015_web.indd 56 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Structured Nonprocrastination 57
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
reminder, Gary can create an attentional structure that makes it difficult
from him to overlook the fact that failing to make the call at the appointed
time is a case of delay.
The recommendation that flows from this discussion is clear: Resisting
the temptation to self-indulgently reconstrue one’s procrastination calls for
preparing structures that steer one’s attention toward the tasks and away
from distractions. This is easier said than done, and there is a strong tempta-
tion to engage in “second-order procrastination,” that is, to procrastinate
about taking steps to reduces one’s procrastination (Andreou, 2007; Ander-
son, Kamphorst, Nauts, Kroese, & De Ridder, 2015). Moreover, insofar as
performance on a task is impeded by the emotions generated by a constant
confrontation with the deadline, one may need to establish an “oasis” in
which to do the work, especially in the case of creative work (for an un-
usual but invaluable source on the idea of a “tortoise enclosure” for creative
work, see Cleese, 1991; see also Dini, 2014). But this is a very risky strategy
unless one has a reliable way of returning one’s attention to the deadline at
the appropriate point in time. Recent work on e-coaching and automated
reminders provide a promising way of developing external structures that
allow one to meet the need for “slack” time by establishing a agent that
will return one’s attention to the relevant task at a preappointed time (on
e-coaching, see Kamphorst, 2011).
Motivation
This discussion of the need for “slack” already introduced the important
dimension of motivation. To resist the temptation to neutralize the nega-
tive self-appraisal associated with acknowledging that one is procrastinating,
one also needs to be sufficiently motivated. The stronger our motivation to
be honest about whether or not we are procrastinating, the less likely we
are to engage in self-indulgent reconstrual. Goals and values play a central
role in motivating individuals to overcome aversions to performing certain
tasks (Gollwitzer & Brandstaetter, 1997; Oettingen & Gollwitzer, 2011), and
the same can be expected for being willing to be honest with oneself about
one’s unwarranted delay. The more Gary dislikes the thought of himself as
lying to himself, the stronger his motive to resist the temptation to deceive
himself. But motivation often flags for a variety of reasons, including nega-
tive affect, ego-depletion, or lack of self-efficacy. Sometimes we just have
trouble facing unflattering truths about ourselves or about the scope of
the extent to which there is no real urgency about a looming deadline. The
better one’s ability to cope with these factors, the better one will be able to
p0195
p0200
st0055
C0015_web.indd 57 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being
58
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
resist the temptation to deceive oneself about one’s unwarranted delaying.
There are numerous psychological strategies that can help us counter flag-
ging motivation to be honest with ourselves. Many of the factors relevant
here are familiar from other contexts: mindful self-compassion (Sirois, 2014;
Wohl, Pychyl, & Bennett, 2010) is a good example of a motivational strat-
egy that contributes to a willingness to face the emotionally difficult fact
that one is limited in the possibilities for counting what one is doing now
as a matter of being on time (see also chapter: Procrastination, Emotion
Regulation, and Well-Being).
Various strategies can help here, including “structural” approaches that
rely on a supportive “coupling” of one’s self-regulation and the environment.
Perhaps the most straightforward environmental approach is to manipulate
the environment so as to reduce the load on self-regulation resources (Bau-
meister, 2002; Mischel & Ayduk, 2004; Parks-Stamm & Gollwitzer, 2009),
thereby leaving one better positioned to overcome both the aversiveness of
the task being delayed and the aversiveness of the unflattering truth about
one’s procrastination. Similarly, on the assumption that capacities for emo-
tion regulation are important not only for facing aversive tasks (see chapter:
Procrastination, Emotion Regulation, and Well-Being) but also the unpleas-
ant recognition that delay would be unwarranted, structural supports are
promising that allow one to engage in emotion regulation with confidence.
One structural strategy with a particularly daunting task can be to build up
to it by first developing mastery about more doable tasks (Bandura, 1995).
In the case of self-indulgent reconstruals, this could involve practice in be-
ing more honest with oneself about trivial matters, perhaps by having a
friend or therapist set up a series of tasks to gain a sense of self-efficacy in
being honest with oneself.
Yet another strategy involves incentives and precommitments cen-
tered not on the dilatory behavior but the self-indulgent reconstruals (El-
ster, 2000; Schelling, 2006). Gary could, for example, give his office mate a
stamped, pre-addressed envelope with a contribution to a political cause he
opposes with the agreement that it will be posted unless Gary reports back
the next day at noon whether he has made the appointment. The point here
is not just that this creates an incentive to make the appointment, but also an
incentive to be up-front about what one has done, with the understanding
that he better have a genuine excuse or justification for not yet having made
the appointment. Such wagers may serve to turbocharge one’s motivation
not to be self-indulgent.
p0205
p0210
C0015_web.indd 58 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Structured Nonprocrastination 59
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
Judgment
Finally, since self-indulgent reconstruals are often a matter of allowing one-
self to engage in cherry-picking the evidence and reasoning fallaciously
about it, one can reduce the temptation to rationalize one’s procrastination
by supporting one’s powers of good judgment. It is also not always obvious
why a bit of delay would really be so unwarranted, and in the end-of-the-
day fog of mental fatigue and a couple glasses of wine, one may have trouble
feeling the force of the evidence for why the delay would be problematic.
Given this, I offer three strategies for scaffolding one’s powers of judgment
and cognition.
First, there are structural strategies that focus on facilitating access to the
reasons why delay would be unwarranted by overcoming biases that tend
to feed into self-indulgent reconstruals. A good example here comes from
attempts to overcome the tendency to hyperbolically discount the impact
our choices will have on our future self. There are a variety of promising
strategies for visualizing the impact of one’s choices on one’s future self and
for strengthening one’s connection to the perspective of one’s future self,
including photoaging (Hershfield, 2011), vivid mental imagery (Blouin-
Hudon & Pychyl, 2015), temporal landmarks (Peetz & Wilson, 2013), and
using bright lines to strengthen the bargaining position of the future self
(Ainslie, 2001).
A similar point holds for navigating complex projects or multiple tasks,
where the difficulty in holding present in mind the rationale for the specific
sequence of doing something makes it particularly easy to slip into thinking
that one perhaps is not really delaying. Numerous tools can help one to fig-
ure out effective ways of structuring a task to achieve a task-supporting level
of specificity. For example, if Gary has to set up a series of treatment regimes
and appointments for himself in the wake of a cancer diagnosis, it will be
useful to do this in a way that allows him to be able to understand clearly
and quickly, especially when under cognitive load or when emotionally,
volitionally, or motivationally depleted, what tasks need to be accomplished
and when specifically. In this sense, structures that go into and support the
process of determining deadlines are part of the structures that can help to
reduce procrastination.
Second, there are accountability procedures one can establish to block
rationalizations. By establishing a routine of regularly and explicitly review-
ing his or her priorities and commitments (see Allen, 2015)—especially
with a neutral interlocutor—one puts in place a procedure, supported by
p0215
p0220
p0225
p0230
st0060
C0015_web.indd 59 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being
60
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
habits and social pressure, during which it is difficult to engage in self-
indulgent reconstruals.
Third, perhaps most speculatively, reducing the prevalence of neutral-
izing scripts and expectations in the culture or one’s peer group can be
expected to have a significant effect. The stories we tell ourselves about
typical courses of action function as affordances that facilitate enacting them
(Hutto, 2008). Thus, as Baumeister has emphasized (Baumeister & Tier-
ney, 2011), a culture that places a high value on self-control and willpower
makes it much more difficult to slack off or, in terms of the present discus-
sion, to get away with self-indulgent reconstruals. And this puts the talk of
purportedly healthy or positive forms of procrastination in a new light. The
notion that procrastination can be seen as an effective strategy, as talk of
“active” or “structured” procrastination suggests, functions as a facilitating
cultural affordance for self-licensing and neutralization techniques, further
contributing to the persistence of patterns of procrastination.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I have argued that we should define procrastination as “cul-
pably unwarranted delay,” that is, as choosing to put a task off to a later
point in time, even though there are overriding, good reasons not to put
things off, and there are no circumstances that excuse one either for fail-
ing to appreciate these reasons or for failing to act. Emphasizing the mens
rea aspect of procrastination in this way opens up possibilities for strategies
for reducing procrastination by establishing structures that counteract one’s
temptation to engage in self-indulgent reconstruals of one’s procrastination.
More research is clearly needed in this vein. For example, more work is
needed on separating out the effects of the failure to resist reconstrual and the
failure to resist delay. But conceptually, it is clear that these are distinct. My
role as theorist in this regard is to hypothesize something that would ulti-
mately have to be demonstrated empirically. And even the theoretical points
made here would benefit from further elaboration.
Let me conclude by anticipating a likely objection that my emphasis
here on blocking self-indulgent reconstruals can sound like a particularly
uncompassionate, old-school approach to procrastination. But it is crucial
to distinguish providing support from providing comfort. Protecting people
from the truth is patronizing, and it is unclear why this should not also be
true of facilitating others’ efforts at self-deception. Look at it this way: If
your friends are lying to themselves in ways that undermine themselves,
p0235
p0240
p0245
p0250
st0065
C0015_web.indd 60 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Structured Nonprocrastination 61
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
do the duties of friendship require that you assist them in their efforts at
deceiving themselves or, rather, that you make it more difficult for them to
succeed in undermining themselves?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many of the ideas for this chapter emerged in discussions with Joe Heath over the years. I
would like to both acknowledge his input and absolve him of any responsibility for the view
articulated here. In preparing this chapter, I have also benefited from discussions with Bart
Kamphorst, Sanne Nauts, Denise de Ridder, and Floor Kroese in connection with related
work on bedtime procrastination (chapter: Bedtime Procrastination: A Behavioral Perspec-
tive on Sleep Insufficiency) and the aversion to specificity (Anderson et al., 2015). And I
would especially like to thank Tim Pychyl for invaluable feedback on an earlier draft.
REFERENCES
Ainslie, G. (2001). Breakdown of will. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Alexander, L., & Kessler, K. D. (1997). Mens rea and inchoate crimes. Journal of Criminal Law
and Criminology, 1138–1193.
Allen, D. (2015). Getting things done: The art of stress-free productivity. London: Penguin.
Anderson, J. (2014). Regimes of autonomy. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 17(3), 355–368.
Anderson, J., & Kamphorst, B. A. (2015). Should uplifting music and smart phone apps count
as willpower doping? The extended will and the ethics of enhanced motivation. AJOB
Neuroscience, 6(1), 35–37.
Anderson, J., Kamphorst, B. A., Nauts, S., Kroese, F. M., & De Ridder, D. T. D. (2015).
Aversion to specificity and second-order procrastination. Paper presented at the ninth
biennial procrastination research conference. Bielefeld, Germany.
Andreou, C. (2007). Environmental preservation and second-order procrastination. Philosophy
& Public Affairs, 35(3), 233–248.
Andreou, C., & White, M. D. (2010). The thief of time: Philosophical essays on procrastination.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Ariely, D., & Wertenbroch, K. (2002). Procrastination, deadlines, and performance: Self-
control by precommitment. Psychological Science, 13(3), 219–224.
Bandura, A. (1995). Exercise of personal and collective efficacy in changing societies. In Self-
Efficacy in Changing Societies (pp. 1–45). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bandura, A. (2004). Health promotion by social cognitive means. Health Education and
Behavior, 31, 143–164.
Baumeister, R. F. (2002). Ego-depletion and self-control failure: An energy model of the self ’s
executive function. Self and Identity, 1, 129–136.
Baumeister, R. F., & Tierney, J. (2011). Willpower: Rediscovering the greatest human strength. New
York: Penguin Press.
Blanken, I., van de Ven, N., & Zeelenberg, M. (2015). A meta-analytic review of moral
licensing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(4), 540–558.
Blouin-Hudon, E. C., & Pychyl, T. A. (2015). Experiencing the temporally extended self:
Initial support for the role of affective states, vivid mental imagery, and future self-
continuity in the prediction of academic procrastination. Personality and Individual
Differences, 86, 50–56.
Bratman, M. (1987). Intention, plans, and practical reason. Cambr idge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Q3
p0255
bi0010
bib0010
bib0015
bib0020
bib0025
bib0030
bib0035
bib0040
bib0045
bib0050
bib0055
bib0060
bib0065
bib0070
bib0075
bib0080
bib0085
st0070
C0015_web.indd 61 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Procrastination, Health, and Well-Being
62
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
Cane, P. (2000). Mens rea in tort law. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 20(4), 533–555.
Chatzidakis, A., Hibbert, S., Mittusis, D., & Smith, A. (2010). Virtue in consumption? Journal
of Marketing Management.
Chu, A. H., & Choi, J. N. (2005). Rethinking procrastination: Positive effects of “active”
procrastination behavior on attitudes and performance. The Journal of Social Psychology,
145(3), 245–264.
Clark, A. (2007). Soft selves and ecological control. In D., Ross, D., Spurrett, H., Kincaid, &
G.L., Stephens, (Eds.), Distributed cognition and the will: Individual volition and social context.
A Bradford Books.
Clark, A. (2008). Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension. Oxford; New
York: Oxford University Press.
Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58, 7–19.
Cleese, J. C. (1991). Creativity in management (video file). London: Video Arts. Available from
http://www.videoarts.com/Vintage-Video-Arts/creativity-in-management/
Copelton, D. A. (2007). “You are what you eat”: Nutritional norms, maternal deviance, and
neutralization of women’s prenatal diets. Deviant Behavior, 28(5), 467–494.
Copes, H., Vieraitis, L., & Jochum, J. M. (2007). Bridging the gap between research and
practice: how neutralization theory can infor m reid interrogations of identity thieves.
Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 18(3), 444–459.
De Witt Huberts, J. C., Evers, C., & De Ridder, D. T. D. (2011). License to sin: self-licensing
as a mechanism underlying hedonic consumption. European Journal of Social Psychology,
42(4), 490–496.
Dini, K. (2014). Creating flow with OmniFocus: Mastering productivity (2nd ed.). Chicago: The
Dini Group.
Elster, J. (2000). Ulysses unbound: Studies in rationality, precommitment, and constraints. Cambridge;
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fairweather, A., & Zagzebski, L. T. (2001). Virtue epistemology: Essays on epistemic virtue and
responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fujita, K. (2008). Seeing the forest beyond the trees: A construal-level approach to self-
control. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(3), 1475–1496.
Gettier, E. (1963). Is justified true belief knowledge? Analysis, 23, 121–123.
Gollwitzer, P., & Brandstaetter, V. (1997). Implementation intentions and effective goal
pursuit. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 186–199.
Gosling, P., Denizeau, M., & Oberlé, D. (2006). Denial of responsibility: a new mode of
dissonance reduction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 722–733.
Heath, J. (2008a). Following the rules: Practical reasoning and deontic constraint. Oxford; New York:
Oxford University Press.
Heath, J. (2008b). Business ethics and moral motivation: A criminological perspective. Journal
of Business Ethics, 83(4), 595–614.
Heath, J., & Anderson, J. (2010). Procrastination and the extended will. In C. Andreou, & M.
White (Eds.), The thief of time: Philosophical essays on procrastination (pp. 233–252). New
York: Oxford University Press.
Hershfield, H. E. (2011). Future self-continuity: how conceptions of the future self transform
intertemporal choice. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1235(1), 30–43.
Holton, R. (2004). Rational resolve. The Philosophical Review, 113(4), 507–535.
Hutto, D. (2008). Folk psychological narratives. MIT Press.
Jenni, K. (2003). Vices of inattention. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 20(3), 279–295.
Kamphorst, B. (2011). Reducing procrastination by scaffolding the formation of
implementation intentions. MA, Utrecht University. Available from https://osiris.library.
uu.nl/files/1320653190659/Kamphorst-thesis-final.pdf.
Lay, C. L. (2014). Procrastinators (and others) can still get to heaven: A guide to directed everyday
living. Toronto: York University Press.
Q4
Q5
Q6
Q7
bib0090
bib0095
bib0100
bib0105
bib0110
bib0115
bib0120
bib0125
bib0130
bib0135
bib0140
bib0145
bib0150
bib0155
bib0160
bib0165
bib0170
bib0175
bib0180
bib0185
bib0190
bib0195
bib0200
bib0205
bib0210
bib0215
C0015_web.indd 62 02/02/16 3:12 AM
Structured Nonprocrastination 63
To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only
by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Thomson Digital. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print.
This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is confidential until formal publication.
ISBN: 978-0-12-802862-9; PII: B978-0-12-802862-9.00003-7; Author: SIROISENGLISH; Document ID: 00003; Chapter ID: c0015
Little, D., & Pychyl, T. A. (2015). Procrastination and dissonance-reduction strategies. Poster
presented at the ninth biennial procrastination research conference. Bielefeld, Germany.
Maruna, S., & Copes, H. (2005). What have we learned from five decades of neutralization
research? Crime and Justice, 32, 221–320.
Mischel, W., & Ayduk, O. (2004). Willpower in a cognitive-affective processing system: the
dynamics of delay of gratification. In R. F. Baumeister, & K. D. Vohs (Eds.), Handbook of
self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications (pp. 99–129). New York: Guilford.
Oettingen, G., & Gollwitzer, P. (2011). Strategies of setting and implementing goals: mental
contrasting and implementation intentions. In M. Tangney (Ed.), Social psychological
foundations of clinical psychology (pp. 114–135). New York: The Guilford Press.
Parks-Stamm, E.J., & Gollwitzer, P.M. (2009). Goal implementation: the benefits and costs of
if-then planning. The psychology of goals (p. 362). Guilford Press.
Peetz, J., & Wilson, A. E. (2013). The post-birthday world: consequences of temporal
landmarks for temporal self-appraisal and motivation. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 104(2), 249.
Perry, J. (1995). Structured procrastination. Available from: www.structuredprocrastination.
com. (blog/online Essay)
Perry, J. (2012). The art of procrastination: A guide to effective dawdling, lollygagging, and postponing.
New York: Workman.
Pychyl, T. A. (2013). Solving the procrastination puzzle: a concise guide to strategies for change. New
York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin.
Schelling, T. C. (2006). Strategies of commitment and other essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Scott, M. B., & Lyman, S. M. (1968). Accounts. American Sociological Review, 46–62.
Silver, M., & Sabini, J. (1981). Procrastinating. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 11(2),
207–221.
Sirois, F. M. (2004). Procrastination and counterfactual thinking: avoiding what might have
been. British Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 269–286.
Sirois, F. M. (2014). Procrastination and stress: exploring the role of self-compassion. Self and
Identity, 13, 128–145.
Sirois, F. M., & Pychyl, T. (2013). Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood
regulation: consequences for future self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7,
115–127.
Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of
quintessential self regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 65–94.
Stroud, S. (2010). Is procrastination weakness of will. In C. Andreou, & M. D. White (Eds.),
The thief of time: Philosophical essays on procrastination (pp. 51–67). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Sykes, G. M., & Matza, D. (1957). Techniques of neutralization: a theory of delinquency.
American Sociological Review, 22, 664–670.
Tice, D. M., & Bratslavsky, E. (2000). Giving in to feel good: the place of emotion regulation
in the context of general self-control. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 149–159.
Toulmin, S. (1964). The uses of argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2010). Construal-level theory of psychological distance.
Psychological Review, 117(2), 440–463.
Tu, Y., & Soman, D. (2014). The categor ization of time and its impact on task initiation.
Journal of Consumer Research, 41(3), 810–822.
Wohl, M. J., Pychyl, T. A., & Bennett, S. H. (2010). I forgive myself, now I can study: how
self-forgiveness for procrastinating can reduce future procrastination. Personality and
Individual Differences, 48(7), 803–808.
Q8
bib0220
bib0225
bib0230
bib0235
bib0240
bib0245
bib0250
bib0255
bib0260
bib0265
bib0270
bib0275
bib0280
bib0285
bib0290
bib0295
bib0300
bib0305
bib0310
bib0315
bib0320
bib0325
bib0330
C0015_web.indd 63 02/02/16 3:12 AM
