Decisional Procrastinator: when the block is choosing where to start

The decisional procrastinator doesn’t avoid the task itself: they avoid the moment of deciding where to start, and that single step can delay everything else.

Once the first step is clear, things usually move along normally, with no more signs of procrastination than anyone else.

The decisional type Ferrari described

In Joseph Ferrari’s classification, this is the decisional type: people who don’t procrastinate out of fear or the need for pressure, but because the act of deciding itself (even low-stakes decisions, like which task to tackle first) creates disproportionate friction for them. Ferrari took the idea from the decisional procrastination questionnaire that psychologist Leon Mann had developed in 1982.

Of the model’s three types, it’s the one that has held up best under review. When Piers Steel (2010) analyzed data from more than 4,000 people, he found no support for separating the arousal type from the avoidant one, but he did see that between half and two thirds of what Mann’s questionnaire measures was specific to it: procrastination in deciding has room to be something distinct.

Deciding and doing, two different things

Norman Milgram and Rachel Tenne (2000) compared procrastination in deciding with procrastination in carrying out tasks and found that they were independent: a person can have a lot of one and little of the other. Each was also linked to a different trait from the Big Five model: decisional procrastination with neuroticism (the tension that deciding stirs up), and task procrastination with low conscientiousness.

It’s a useful clue for this profile: the block doesn’t speak to a lack of discipline, but to the discomfort of choosing without certainty. Steel’s (2007) meta-analysis adds the other ingredient, organization: when it isn’t clear what comes first, postponing the whole decision feels more comfortable than risking a bad choice.

Where the block shows up

• A specific block at the start, not during execution: once started, the pace of work is normal.
• Disproportionate time spent planning compared to time spent executing.
• Noticeable relief as soon as someone else defines the first step for the person.
• Tasks with multiple valid ways to start get postponed the most; ones with a single obvious path almost never do.

Lowering the cost of deciding

For this profile, what matters isn’t deciding better, but deciding less often. A criterion set in advance (“I always start with what’s most urgent,” or “with what’s easiest”) avoids weighing every option from scratch each morning. Writing down the first step the night before, when the decision weighs less, moves that choice to a calmer moment.

The research that best supports this idea is Peter Gollwitzer’s work on implementation intentions: plans of the “when X happens, I will do Y” kind, which fix in advance when, where and how you will act. Gollwitzer and Sheeran’s (2006) meta-analysis, covering 94 independent tests, found a medium-to-large effect on goal attainment (d = 0.65).

James Clear popularized a version of the same idea in Atomic Habits (2018) under the name habit stacking: hooking the new action onto a routine that already exists (“after pouring my coffee, I open the document and write the title”). In both cases, the earlier cue triggers the next step and the decision drops out of the process, which is exactly the part that wears this profile out most.

If your block mostly shows up with evaluated tasks or ones you’re afraid of doing wrong, you might fit more into the avoidant procrastinator profile. You can go back to your result in the Am I a Procrastinator? test.

Sources

• Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. Avery.
• Ferrari, J. R., Johnson, J. L., & McCown, W. G. (1995). Procrastination and Task Avoidance: Theory, Research, and Treatment. Plenum.
• Gollwitzer, P. M. & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69-119. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1
• Milgram, N. & Tenne, R. (2000). Personality correlates of decisional and task avoidant procrastination. European Journal of Personality, 14(2), 141-156.
• Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65-94. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.65
• Steel, P. (2010). Arousal, avoidant and decisional procrastinators: Do they exist? Personality and Individual Differences, 48(8), 926-934. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.02.025