What Procrastination Is, What Causes It, and Why It Clings So Hard
I am not sure about you but I fight procrastination on a continual basis. I know it is a common fight within the creative community. Two years of digging and research have helped me to figure it out in my studio AND helped me to develop a course on it. The course will be released in the spring (knock on wood).
Procrastination isn’t really a time-management problem, it’s a self-regulation problem. It shows up as the gap between what we plan to do and what we actually do, and that gap is fueled by emotion. Psychologist Piers Steel, in one of the most comprehensive reviews on the subject, called procrastination a ‘quintessential self-regulatory failure.’ His research linked it to impulsivity and delay, not laziness or weak character. So when you put off a studio session or painting marathon, you’re not fighting poor morals or character, you’re fighting biology that’s wired to choose now over later.
The clearest picture researchers have today is that procrastination is really about mood repair. When a task feels hard, uncertain, or like it might bruise our ego, it stirs up uncomfortable feelings. To calm that discomfort, the brain quickly suggests something that will feel better right now. Psychologists Fuschia Sirois and Tim Pychyl call this ‘short-term mood regulation.’ In other words, we trade our future self for a moment of relief. If the canvas feels risky, a quick scroll, a snack, or even straightening up the desk takes the edge off, but the future painter is the one who pays the price. This is beginning to make sense to me, the struggle is not just me being a ding-a-ling, it is biology.
Deep down, your brain tends to undervalue the future. Rewards that are far away automatically feel less important. Brain scans show that quick rewards light up the emotional ‘now’ parts of the brain, while longer-term goals rely more on the brain’s planning centers. That tug-of-war explains why ‘start the painting that might not work’ feels less rewarding than ‘peek at Instagram or YouTube that gives a hit of pleasure in three seconds’, even when we know the long-term choice matters more. Biology isn’t an excuse, but it is a real force. (My personal ‘now’ reward is diving into research for something I’m writing or scrolling Pinterest for ‘inspiration.’)
Our brain’s emotion and control systems also play a big role in procrastination. People who struggle with chronic delay often have brains that react more strongly to threat and have a harder time regulating that reaction. One large brain-scan study found that those with weaker self-control showed an amygdala, the brain’s alarm bell, that was more active and less balanced by its regulator. In plain terms, when the threat detector is extra sensitive and the brakes don’t work as well, hesitation tends to win. This helps explain why sensitive, perfection-leaning creatives sometimes freeze in front of a blank canvas or page.
Task resistance matters too. If the brain tags a task as unpleasant, the anterior insula, our internal alarm for discomfort, switches on. Imaging studies show that the stronger the resistance, the more the insula works with the amygdala to drive procrastination. But when the outcome feels vividly worthwhile, the caudate nucleus (a key part of the brain’s reward system) takes the lead, linking with the hippocampus to pull us forward instead of holding us back. That is a mouthful, but the gist is simple. If your body expects the task to feel bad, it stalls. If your mind can make the outcome feel real and rewarding, it moves. Hmm, I think I can work with that.
Put the pieces together and you can see why artists get trapped. Creative work is uncertain, identity-relevant, and, often times public. Uncertainty fuels threat signals. Identity relevance raises the stakes. Public exposure activates perfectionism. The brain reaches for mood repair. That might look like organizing brushes, researching “one more” reference, or drafting a grand plan without a single mark made. Each small escape temporarily reduces amygdala-driven discomfort. The loop is self-reinforcing because the delay brings guilt, and guilt increases threat, which makes the next escape feel even more necessary.
Procrastination also has a temporal flavor that punishes long horizons. The further away the payoff, the more we discount it. This is why the open-ended personal series languishes while a commission with a near deadline gets done. The same brain that avoids a risky canvas can sprint when the outcome is immediate and social, because the valuation tipped. None of this means we are doomed to stall. It means we must deliberately shape emotions, expectations, and environments so the wise part of the brain gets a fair fight.
There are also trait-level differences shaped by learning and biology. Some people lean toward action orientation and recover from setbacks faster. Others lean toward state orientation, dwell on “what ifs,” and get snagged by negative feelings. Imaging work increasingly ties trait procrastination to patterns in prefrontal and limbic circuits that predict delay behavior on lab tasks and in everyday life. For our purposes as makers and creatives, that translates to compassion and craft. Some artists need more emotional scaffolding along with technique, and many of us do better when the first steps are tiny and low stakes.
Finally, context quietly amplifies delay. Unstructured time, long deadlines, and tempting tools nearby all nudge procrastination. Studio layout, phone proximity, even the way a to-do is written can change the felt resistance. If the first step is ambiguous, the insula reads threat. If the first step is concrete and tiny, the prefrontal cortex can engage. Good news. Context is the easiest lever to pull.
So procrastination is not a character flaw. It is a tangle of affect, valuation, and control. It thrives on avoidance and abstraction and wilts when the next action is clear, the outcome feels rewarding, and the environment reduces friction for good choices. That is the frame. In part two we turn it into practice for artists who want to actually create work, not just imagine it.
If you have interest in travel and overcoming the challenges we face as artists such as imposter syndrome, perfectionism, comparison, procrastination, and others, the Italy Workshop interest list opening soon. I’m partnering with Castello della Pieve in Mercatello sul Metauro, Italy for a small, transformational creative retreat focused on flow, mindset, and process over product. Twelve seats, slow mornings, deep afternoons, and evening conversations about the craft and the soul of making. (Fall 2026)
Making It Stick: The Creative Brain at Work