When academic load piles up, it is easy to put off tasks even when you know you should start. Assignments get postponed, readings accumulate, club work gets delayed and the longer you wait, the more overwhelming it feels.
Procrastination is the voluntary delay of an intended action despite the knowledge that this delay may harm the individual in terms of the task performance or even just how the individual feels about the task or him-or herself. (Pychyl, 2013)
It reflects how under emotional and cognitive overload, tasks can feel intimidating or mentally draining, making you avoid them and turn to more immediately rewarding distractions.
Instant Gratification
This happens because we tend to value immediate rewards more than distant goals (Ainslie, 1975).
Hanging out with friends or watching a movie feels more rewarding right now than a paper due next week. This tendency is referred to as instant gratification, which often leads to delaying important but less immediately pleasurable tasks.
Sigmund Freud was one of the firsts to use this term to conceptualise the pleasure principle which is the tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain (Freud, 1920).
Strategy: To counteract this delay due to instant gratification, the Zeigarnik effect is useful. It states that people remember unfinished or interrupted tasks more than completed ones. (Shuyong & Kan, 2024)
Starting a task increases the likelihood of continuing due to the cognitive tension of incomplete actions. The tension is relieved only when the task is completed.
The 5 minute rule follows this principle: committing to work just for 5 minutes tends to reduce resistance and helps momentum build naturally.
Breaking down tasks into smaller, achievable steps, such as, opening the document and writing just the first line, can reduce cognitive load and make it easier to resist the pull of immediate rewards (Pychyl, 2013).
Psyche Trail 
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