GRASP

Connect with your future self to prevent procrastinating

January 28th, 2026, by Karen Miller Tag(s): Wellbeing, Productivity

This post is the third in a series exploring the research of Tim Pychyl, a leading scholar on procrastination at Carleton University.

  • Part 1 suggested that procrastination is an emotional-regulation issue which can impact our health, wellbeing and performance.
  • Part 2 focused on the ability to manage difficult emotions as a key strategy for reducing procrastination.

In this post, I outline a second key strategy drawn from Pychyl’s research: strengthening the connection with your future self. Procrastination can persist because we prioritise the comfort of our present self and overestimate future motivation. If we connect more strongly to our future self we are more likely to take action in the present, despite the discomfort.

Why ‘I’ll feel like it tomorrow’ keeps us stuck

When you are faced with a challenging or unpleasant task, do you ever hear yourself thinking:

I don’t want to
I don’t feel like it
I’ll feel more like it tomorrow

People often hold the belief that they will feel more like doing a challenging task some time in the future, rather than right now. Unfortunately, that future moment of motivation almost never arrives.

Psychologists Dan Gilbert (Harvard) and Tim Wilson (University of Virginia) refer to the tendency to predict how we will feel in the future as “affective forecasting”. When we set an intention for the future we are often biased toward the present. We tend to assume that our present feelings will continue into the future, and don’t take into account how we might feel tomorrow.

In the present moment, postponing an unpleasant task usually brings relief. We replace it with something more enjoyable, which feels good. Moreover, making a virtuous plan to do it tomorrow (“I’ll do it then — good on me!”) adds a further boost. As Tim Pychyl aptly puts it, “There is nothing like a righteous intention now for action later to make us feel good”.

Can you see where the problem lies?

Our attention is focused on how our present self feels, while the needs of our future self are largely ignored.

Why connecting to your future self matters

In his book Your Future Self, psychologist Hal Hershfield suggests that many of us feel “disconnected” from our future self. The future can seem very distant making it more likely we will prioritise immediate comfort over our longer term goals. For HDR students, this might mean putting off writing a difficult section of a chapter, responding to reviewer feedback or preparing an ethics application.

Hershfield’s research suggests that when we experience a sense of continuity between our present and future selves, our behaviour changes. We are more willing to act now, even when it feels uncomfortable, because the future self no longer feels like “someone else” who will deal with the consequences later.

Take a moment to reflect:

  • How connected do you feel to your future self?

  • Does that future version of you feel friendly and familiar, or distant and abstract?

Ways to work with your future self

Here are two practical things you can do:

  1. Make your future self vivid and concrete

    A good way to build continuity is to mentally rehearse your future in realistic, specific ways. Rather than imagining a vague sense of relief “someday”, picture concrete, real outcomes such as submitting a chapter to your supervisor or finishing a difficult revision.

  2. Assume motivation won’t arrive, and act anyway

    A second method is to stop trusting the feeling that “I’ll feel more like it tomorrow.” When that thought arises, interrupt it with:

    • “There’s a good chance I won’t feel like it tomorrow either”.
    • “I don’t need to feel like doing this in order to do it”.

Expect that when the time comes to work on the task, you probably won’t feel enthusiastic about starting. That is normal, and importantly, the discomfort you feel at the beginning is usually temporary. Motivation often follows action, not the other way around.

If you can begin, even it is just a small step, you may find that your mood shifts as you go. Even if it doesn’t, you will have still acted in a way that supports your future self.

Final reflections

Procrastination thrives when your present self dominates decision-making and your future self is ignored. By strengthening the connection with your future self, and letting go of the belief that motivation must come first you create the conditions for action.

What’s next?

In the next post in this series, I’ll share another key strategy from Tim Pychyl’s research to help you combat procrastination.

Sources used

I’ve drawn upon the arguments presented in Pychyl’s book, Solving the procrastination puzzle: A concise guide to strategies for change, Penguin: New York, 2013, and from his audio series on the Waking Up app.

I’ve also dabbled in the long list of published papers listed on Pychyl’s website.

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Photo by Anton Malanin on Unsplash