Types of Procrastinators - Relaxed Procrastinators

Procrastinators can actually be divided into two separate groups based on the underlying feelings that an individual has or the underlying feelings that the individual is attempting to avoid when a particular factor causes the individual to procrastinate. These two groups are often referred to as relaxed procrastinators and tense-afraid procrastinators. Relaxed procrastinators are individuals that avoid a particular task in order to avoid the stress that may result from attempting to complete that task. For example, an individual that has a 15-page paper due the next day that counts as half of his or her grade and he or she has not even started it yet may go out and party instead of actually trying to write the paper. Since the individual is attempting to avoid the stress associated with the task by substituting it with a distraction instead of actually completing the task, the individual is a relaxed procrastinator.

Relaxed procrastinators will often avoid a particular task for a variety of different reasons including that the task is too confusing, there are too many distractions present in the area, the individual is having difficulty identifying which tasks are most important, or the individual finds the task boring or unappealing. Individuals that procrastinate in order to avoid stressful tasks that they find confusing, unappealing, boring, or simply are unmotivated to complete will often substitute other more appealing distractions and tasks for the task that they should be completing. In other words, a relaxed procrastinator will usually choose the party over the paper. The most important thing to keep in mind is that relaxed procrastinators avoid tasks mainly because they are unmotivated, easily frustrated, or easily distracted. This is primarily because they have difficulty breaking large projects down into smaller parts and they only see one large project that they often do not know how to handle, so they attempt to avoid that project by any means necessary.