How We Procrastinate (Survey Results!)

“How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time.”
– Fred Brooks

The results from the procrastination styles survey are in! We had hundreds of responses, and honestly one of the results surprised me a little.

I’ll get to the results in a second, let’s first quickly recap the two styles of procrastinators – long term and short term procrastinators.

Short Term: “I’ll Do It Tomorrow”

Short term procrastination is the type of procrastination where you have a small task, something you could finish right now.

However, instead of starting, short term procrastinators tell themselves “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

This is procrastination one day at a time.

Long Term: ”I’ll Do It Someday”

The second type of procrastination is long term procrastination. This is the type of procrastination that kills dreams, leads to long term regrets, and that other people will play along and help you deny you’re doing it.

Long term procrastinators have some project they want to take up, a dream they want to accomplish, but have no idea when they’ll actually be able to do it. They get tied up in day to day work, little emergencies and short term “urgent” tasks

As as a result, they are never able to put aside enough time to write, or exercise, or taking that trip they’ve dreamed about because they’re so busy – all those things get pushed off to “someday.”

If you want to see a deeper discussion, see the original article: The Two Types of Procrastinators.

The Results! Most People Are…

The last time I wrote to you, I asked you first share with me which type you more identified with, short or long term, and then guess which you felt most other people would identify with.

Well today I’ll give you the results – and let’s see if you guessed right! Do you remember what you chose last week?

I’ll give you the results to the second question first.

By a small margin (55% to 45%), most readers felt that other people were long term procrastinators.

However, what did most readers feel that they struggled with? The answer might surprise you – it certainly surprised me:

So to recap: most of you feel that other people are long term procrastinators – putting their dreams on hold, putting things off to “someday.” However, personally, most of you responded that you are short term procrastinators.

As for myself? I manage to overcome my procrastination, but the style that affects me the most is short term procrastination. It’s the one I catch myself frequently slipping back into, unless I use the strategies I’ve learned over the years to overcome it and continue to take action.

I had more I wanted to share with you, but this week has been very busy for me between projects, work, helping clients, getting back into writing, and looking over these results.

So I’m going to have to cut this short, but I wanted to get you the results as soon as I could – and I enjoyed this so much, I think we’ll keep doing these one question surveys! I hope you enjoy them too.

As we close today, I have another question for you:

Why do you most frequently procrastinate? Even if you frequently overcome it, what reason or excuse do you find usually affects you?

Please answer below in this quick, one question survey, and feel free to share your thoughts with me below in the comments – I can’t reply to all of them, but I do read every single one!

Top Procrastination Reason Survey

I would love to hear your feedback, and in the next few days I’ll put together the results and let you know what they are. Make sure you’re signed up via email, I’ll talk to you again soon.

If you like what you’ve seen so far, and want to make the most out of your life, take a moment to read the details about my course The Action Solution and see if it’s something you’d be interested in.