Key Takeaways
- A 2007 meta-analysis concluded perfectionism was unrelated to procrastination. It was wrong, and the reason it was wrong is the interesting part.
- Perfectionism has two components that pull in opposite directions, so averaging them produces almost exactly zero.
- Perfectionistic concerns, the fear of falling short, predict more procrastination (r = .23 across 43 samples).
- Perfectionistic strivings, the high standards themselves, predict less procrastination (r = -.22 across 38 samples).
- So “perfectionist procrastinator” isn’t a contradiction. It describes someone high in the fear and lower in the striving.
The document is due Thursday. It’s Tuesday night and you have not started, and you have not started because you know exactly how good it needs to be. Opening the file means confronting the gap between that and whatever you’d produce in the next hour.
People will tell you this is a contradiction. Perfectionists are meant to be the ones who deliver early with the formatting immaculate. If you cared that much, why is the file still closed?
The research answers this, and the answer is better than the usual “fear of failure” gesture.
The meta-analysis that said there was no link
In 2007, a meta-analysis of procrastination concluded that perfectionism was essentially unrelated to it. The average correlation came out near zero.
That finding sat awkwardly with what clinicians and perfectionists both reported, and in 2017 a team revisited it with a different assumption. Rather than treating perfectionism as one thing, they split it into its two established components (Sirois et al., 2017).
What splitting it revealed
The two components behave in opposite directions.
Perfectionistic concerns, meaning fear of mistakes and doubt about your actions, were positively associated with trait procrastination: r = .23 across 43 samples and roughly 10,000 people.
Perfectionistic strivings, meaning the high personal standards themselves, were negatively associated: r = -.22 across 38 samples and roughly 9,500 people (Sirois et al., 2017).
Both effects held after statistically separating the two dimensions, so this isn’t an artefact of them overlapping.
Now look back at the 2007 result. A positive effect of about .23 and a negative one of about .22, averaged together, give you almost exactly nothing. The earlier meta-analysis didn’t find that perfectionism has no relationship with procrastination. It found that the two halves cancel.
What the 2007 review was actually measuring
Worth being fair to the earlier meta-analysis, because it was a serious piece of work rather than a sloppy one.
Steel pooled 691 correlations and identified what does predict procrastination robustly: task aversiveness, delay, low self-efficacy, impulsiveness, and low conscientiousness (Steel, 2007). Those findings have held up. Perfectionism came out near zero in that analysis, and the conclusion drawn at the time was that its reputation as a cause of delay was folk psychology.
The problem was not the statistics. It was that perfectionism had been entered as a single variable, and a single variable cannot represent something with two components pointing opposite ways. The 2017 reanalysis did not overturn Steel’s findings so much as show that one of his variables had been mis-specified.
That is a useful thing to know in general. When a meta-analysis reports no relationship, one live possibility is genuinely no relationship. Another is a construct that has been flattened.
Why the fear delays and the standard doesn’t
Once you see the split, the mechanism follows.
Strivings pull you toward the work. If you want the thing to be excellent and you’re not especially afraid of it, starting is the obvious move, because starting is how excellence happens. High standards without fear look a lot like conscientiousness.
Concerns push you away from it. If a shortfall would say something about your worth, then the unstarted document is safe and the started one is evidence. Delay isn’t laziness here. It’s avoidance of a threat, and the threat is real in the only sense that matters, which is that you believe it.
This fits the wider finding that procrastination is a mood-regulation problem rather than a time-management one. You aren’t failing to plan. You’re avoiding how the task makes you feel, which is covered in our piece on why you procrastinate.
The mood-repair account
There is a theory underneath the correlation, and it explains the timing of what you experience.
Sirois and Pychyl argued that procrastination is best understood as prioritising short-term mood repair over long-term goals. The task produces an unpleasant feeling now; avoiding it removes that feeling now; the cost is transferred to a future version of you who has less time and the same task (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013).
Perfectionistic concerns slot into that account precisely. They raise the unpleasantness of the task, because the task is not just work, it is a test you might fail as a person. The higher the emotional charge, the stronger the pull of removing it, and the more attractive tomorrow looks.
It also explains the specific texture of perfectionist delay, which is that it does not feel like relaxing. You avoid the document and then spend the evening not enjoying anything else either, because the task is still there and now guilt is attached. Mood repair that does not repair the mood is a fairly exact description of the experience.
Why this explains the arguments you’ve had
Two people can both be perfectionists and have completely different relationships with deadlines, and neither is lying about themselves.
The colleague who delivers early with everything polished is probably high in strivings and comparatively low in concerns. Their perfectionism runs toward the work. Yours runs away from it. You share a label and almost nothing else, which is why their advice never helps.
It also explains why “just start” lands so badly. It’s aimed at someone with a motivation problem. If your problem is that starting makes the threat concrete, being told to start is being told to walk toward it.
What follows practically
The useful move is to reduce what starting costs, rather than to manufacture discipline.
Make the first version explicitly disposable. Not a draft, which still implies a trajectory toward good. Something you have decided in advance to throw away. The fear attaches to producing something that will be judged, so produce something that won’t be.
Notice which half is loud today. When you catch yourself avoiding, ask whether you’re avoiding the work or avoiding the verdict. They feel identical and they need different responses.
Stop treating the delay as the problem. This one has direct evidence behind it. Researchers followed 119 first-year students across two midterms in the same course. Those who forgave themselves for having procrastinated before the first exam went on to procrastinate less before the second (Wohl et al., 2010).
The mechanism fits the mood-repair account exactly. Self-blame adds negative feeling to the task, and a task carrying more negative feeling is more attractive to avoid. Forgiving the last lapse removes that added weight, which makes starting cheaper. Berating yourself for procrastinating is not a neutral failure to help. It is an active contribution to the next delay.
For a perfectionist this is the hardest instruction in the article, because self-criticism feels like the responsible response and forgiveness feels like letting yourself off. The data says the responsible-feeling option is the one that costs you the next deadline.
Work on the concerns, not the standards. This is where the leverage is, and it’s the same conclusion the treatment literature reaches. Our guide to what actually helps with perfectionism goes through it, and the procrastination side covers the behavioural half.
When to talk to a professional
Neither perfectionism nor procrastination is a diagnosis, and there’s no threshold to clear before either is worth attention.
Worth raising with someone qualified: if the avoidance is costing you opportunities or income, if it comes with persistent anxiety or low mood, or if falling short reliably produces shame rather than disappointment. Chronic procrastination that has resisted every system you’ve tried is usually not a systems problem, which is the most useful thing to know about it.
If no productivity system has ever stuck
That’s expected when the mechanism is emotional rather than organisational. A therapist can work on the fear that makes starting expensive, which is the part no planner reaches, and perfectionism is one of the better-evidenced targets in this area. Our guide to finding the right therapist covers what to look for, what it tends to cost, and how to start without a referral.
The takeaway
Perfectionism doesn’t cause procrastination. Half of it does, and the other half prevents it.
That’s worth holding onto, because the version you’ve been told about yourself is that you’re a perfectionist who somehow lacks discipline, which reads as a character defect with a contradiction inside it. The data says something plainer: the caring about quality was never the problem, and the part that is the problem has a name and a treatment literature.
The document is still due Thursday. But you now know that opening it is not a test of willpower, and that making the first pass genuinely disposable is a legitimate move rather than a cheat. Our full guide to perfectionism covers the rest.
Frequently asked questions
Can perfectionists be procrastinators?
Yes, and the research explains why it is not a contradiction. Perfectionistic concerns, the fear of falling short, predict more procrastination, while perfectionistic strivings, the high standards, predict less. Someone high in the first and lower in the second is a perfectionist who reliably delays.
Does perfectionism cause procrastination?
Only one component of it does. A 2017 meta-analysis found perfectionistic concerns positively associated with trait procrastination (r = .23) and perfectionistic strivings negatively associated (r = -.22). An earlier meta-analysis found no relationship because it treated perfectionism as one thing and the two halves cancelled out.
Why do I procrastinate on things I care about most?
Because caring raises the stakes, and if a shortfall would feel like a verdict on you, the task becomes threatening rather than merely difficult. Unstarted work stays safe from judgement. This is why procrastination is better understood as avoiding an emotion than as failing to manage time.
Why doesn’t “just start” work for me?
That advice assumes a motivation problem. If your delay is driven by fear of falling short, starting is the thing that makes the threat concrete, so being told to start is being told to walk toward it. Reducing what starting costs, by making the first version explicitly disposable, tends to work better.
How do I stop perfectionist procrastination?
Work on the fear rather than the standards, and reduce the cost of starting rather than trying to manufacture discipline. Making a first version you have decided in advance to discard removes the thing being avoided, which is producing something that will be judged. Self-blame about the delay reliably makes it worse.
Sources
- Sirois, F. M., Molnar, D. S., & Hirsch, J. K. (2017). A meta-analytic and conceptual update on the associations between procrastination and multidimensional perfectionism. European Journal of Personality, 31(2), 137–159. DOI
- Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65–94.
- Sirois, F. M., & Pychyl, T. A. (2013). Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood regulation: consequences for future self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115–127.
- Hewitt, P. L., & Flett, G. L. (1991). Perfectionism in the self and social contexts: conceptualization, assessment, and association with psychopathology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(3), 456–470.
- Stoeber, J., & Otto, K. (2006). Positive conceptions of perfectionism: approaches, evidence, challenges. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(4), 295–319.
Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Neither perfectionism nor procrastination is a clinical diagnosis, and this article cannot diagnose you with anything. Always seek the advice of a qualified professional with any questions about your mental health.
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