The Real Reason You Procrastinate and Expert Strategies to Overcoming It Procrastination is not a time management problem. It's an emotional management problem.

How familiar is this scenario? You have a stressful work assignment that needs to be completed by EOD, but before you engage, you check your email for the fifth time in 15 minutes, scroll through Instagram, and maybe even listen to your favorite podcast.

Welcome to the not-so-wonderful world of procrastination. We've all been there, and it's nothing new. Humans have been procrastinating for thousands of years. The ancient Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato had a different word for it — Akrasia— but it still meant the same thing.

Procrastinating is delaying or postponing a task you know needs to be done. The end result is often regret, depression, and self-loathing. So why do we do this to ourselves? And what can we do to reverse the bothersome trend?