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https://solvingprocrastination.com/why-people-procrastinate/

Why People Procrastinate

People procrastinate because their drive to delay is irrationally stronger than their drive to act. This happens when their self-control and motivation are weakened by issues like exhaustion, and are opposed by issues like fear.

Specifically, the drive to act represents how strongly people can push themselves to take action at the moment. It depends primarily on people’s self-control and motivation, which are influenced by various factors. For example, at any given moment, a person’s self-control can be influenced by how tired they are, while their motivation can be influenced by how long they will have to wait before being rewarded for taking action. Accordingly, issues like exhaustion and far-future outcomes can interfere with self-control and motivation, and consequently reduce people’s drive to act, as can many other issues, like depression, ADHD, and low self-efficacy.

Conversely, the drive to delay represents how strongly people feel pushed to avoid taking action at the moment. It depends primarily on the desire to feel better in the short term, by avoiding negative emotions (e.g., fear of a certain task), and by increasing positive emotions (e.g., through digital entertainment), a behavior described as “giving in to feel good”. This drive involves various issues, like anxiety and perfectionism, which people want to avoid in order to protect their emotions in the short term.

Reasons for procrastinating

 The following are the key reasons people procrastinate:

• Prioritization of short-term mood (i.e., preferring to feel better right now even if this will lead to feeling worse later).
• Task aversiveness (i.e., thinking a task is frustrating, boring, or unpleasant in another way).
• Anxiety and fear (e.g., due to concerns over being criticized).
• Feeling overwhelmed (e.g., due to having so many things to do that it’s unclear where to start).
• Perfectionism (e.g., due to refusal to publish work with any flaws).
• Disconnect from the future self (e.g., viewing the consequences of your delay as something that someone else will experience).
• Delayed outcomes (e.g., due to discounting of rewards that will only be given in the far future).
• Low motivation (e.g., due to low-value outcomes).
• Expected effort (e.g., due to hard tasks).
• Inertia (i.e., the tendency to keep doing what you’re already doing).
• Abstract goals (i.e., ones that aren’t clearly defined).
• Cognitive biases (e.g., being unreasonably pessimistic about your odds of success).
• Time-management issues (e.g., failure to prioritize tasks).
• Problematic traits (e.g., impulsivity).
• Underlying behaviors (e.g., rebellion against an authority figure).
• Underlying conditions (e.g., depression).
• Low energy (e.g., due to lack of sleep).
• Problematic environment (e.g., one that’s filled with distractions).

You can explore each of these points in greater depth on the source page: https://solvingprocrastination.com/why-people-procrastinate/