Towards Understanding Procrastination

Abstract

For long, practitioners on procrastination research have viewed the phenomenon, which affects general and academic populations, as a dysfunctional, self-handicapping and maladaptive behaviour that leads to negative outcomes. Today, some procrastination researchers look at it from different view point, albeit with a lot of criticisms.  The new perspective considered procrastination as functional and adaptive that leads to desirable outcomes. The paper, therefore, over-view the conceptual nature of procrastination from the two different view points. Equally, brief history of procrastination, for its relevance in shaping procrastination studies, and its nature, have bee highlighted. Efforts towards re-conceptualizing procrastination as a positive and desirable human behaviour have been reviewed and presented. Specifically, the new perspective in procrastination research that conceptualized procrastination as “active,” as opposed to “passive,” has been extensively discussed. The paper concludes that, procrastination is “Active” procrastination, as claimed may be another form of self-regulation strategy use for the attainment of desirable outcomes. The paper finally, recommended the need for further research in the area of procrastination for its better understanding.