Don’t have time? The brief:

• You’re not putting things off because you’re lazy or disorganized. You’re regulating discomfort.
• There are six distinct types of procrastination. Each one offers short-term relief that creates long-term mess.
• You don’t need better habits. You need to catch your autopilot in the moment and choose differently.

The full piece goes deeper and makes the vague part clearer.

Which Type of Procrastination Is Your Nemesis?

Procrastination doesn’t always look like avoidance. Sometimes it looks like productivity or like waiting for the right moment. There are six types of procrastination, and everyone has their default. Which is yours?

Start Here: Which of These Do You Recognize?

1. The Swerve: You’re about to start. The task is clear, the timing is now, and suddenly you’re cleaning out your inbox or fixing a shelf. Your brain called in a decoy, and you fell for it.
2. Someday Syndrome: You’ve decided you’ll get to it. Just not today. Or this week. You’re waiting for the version of you who feels ready.
3. Task Tetris: You’re doing everything but the one thing that matters. Knocking out emails, errands, easy tasks that feel like momentum but leave the real work untouched.
4. The Research Spiral: You tell yourself you’re not avoiding. You’re researching, prepping, clarifying. You’re buying the tools. Making plans. But never crossing into execution.
5. The Auto-No: You believe you don’t have the capacity. Not enough focus, time, energy. So you don’t test it.
6. The Non-Decision Loop: You never committed to when you’d do it. You knew what the task was, but you didn’t give it a start time or structure. Later, you blame yourself for not doing something you never actually told yourself to begin.

Why We Procrastinate

Think back to the last time you caught yourself procrastinating. You pivoted or stalled, but what if you hadn’t? What do you think it would have felt like to do the thing right then?

Not the imagined result after doing it. The immediate sensation right as you thought of jumping in.

You might not know. Avoidance doesn’t usually start with conscious recognition of your thoughts and feelings. It starts with a split-second forecast your brain makes outside of awareness. Your system predicts the task will trigger something unpleasant—like getting it wrong, wasting effort, being exposed, or feeling stuck—and that prediction is enough to justify a detour.

The task slips out of focus, and you don’t do it, not because you chose not to, but because your brain made the decision for you and hoped you wouldn’t notice.

That’s not poor motivation or a lack of discipline. It’s emotional regulation.

It’s your brain stepping in to prevent you from feeling something it thinks you can’t handle. And your brain is a drama queen, so sometimes a flicker of doubt or a trickle of stress is enough to shut it all down.

Why Procrastination Doesn’t Go Away

Most people try to fix procrastination with tactics. They reorganize their calendar, download a new app, or tell someone to hold them accountable. But if the emotional load behind the task hasn’t changed, the pattern will reappear because your brain will always look for a way out the moment it senses discomfort.

For example, imagine you’ve been putting off a difficult email but when you finally sit down to write it (congratulations, by the way), you decide you need to clear your head first. Suddenly, you’re replying to old messages, checking the weather, realizing you haven’t eaten in six hours and are somehow both starving and too impatient to make a snack.

You may tell yourself you got distracted, but actually your brain staged a quiet mutiny. The discomfort that made the task feel hard—maybe the fear of saying the wrong thing, of starting conflict, of being unprepared—was still there. So your attention slipped away before you could name it.

The issue isn’t disorganization or lack of discipline. It’s that the task still feels icky in some way. And until that changes, your brain will do everything it can to trick you into not doing it.

The Payoff Behind Each Type of Procrastination

Each type is regulating something uncomfortable.

1. The Swerve helps you avoid the sharp edge of starting. Not the task itself. Just the moment before it begins.
2. Someday Syndrome lets you skip the gap between who you are today and who you think you need to be to get it done. You delay, and keep the belief that future-you will be better equipped.
3. Task Tetris keeps you moving without confronting what you’re avoiding. You stay busy with things that don’t challenge anything.
4. The Research Spiral gives you structure when you don’t feel solid. It lets you stay near the task without committing to it.
5. The Auto-No ends it before it starts. You decide you’re not ready without checking. You never get close enough to test that story.
6. The Non-Decision Loop isn’t about avoiding the task. It’s about never deciding when you’ll do it. You leave it vague enough to ignore and specific enough to blame yourself for.

Each one lowers the volume on something your system doesn’t want to feel. And each one works. Until it doesn’t.

The Skill That Actually Stops Procrastination

Knowing your pattern helps. But in the moment you’ll still feel the pull to check out, stall, or change the plan. Not because you’re unaware, but because your brain is faster than your insight.

By the time you notice the discomfort, your system has already started to move away from it. Interrupting it takes skill. The work is noticing earlier, then staying present long enough to choose differently. You build that by watching avoidance happen in real time, learning how to stay conscious the moment your system wants out, and knowing how to redirect your autopilot.

Once avoidance stops solving the problem, it stops being the default.

You write it, send it, and wait for the dread to do something. It doesn’t.

This Is What We Do in Coaching

Getting clear on what’s actually happening so you can stop solving the wrong thing. We find the patterns and work with what’s underneath, not around it.

If that’s the shift you’re ready for, book a free call and let’s talk.