I’ll Check My Email First: How “Productive” Procrastination Impacts Consumer Time Use

Jacqueline J. Pan and Jordan Etkin

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2026, vol. 11, issue 3, 267 - 279

Abstract: Procrastination—the voluntary delay of a focal task—is both frequent and costly. But while procrastination objectively undermines effective time use, how might consumers’ perceptions of their procrastination behavior shape its effects? This research examines how the perceived productivity of procrastination influences consumers’ time-use decisions. Eleven experiments (N=6,869) demonstrate that perceiving procrastination as more (vs. less) productive makes consumers more likely to procrastinate for longer (i.e., spend time) and less likely to compensate for the time spent (i.e., save time). This is driven by beliefs that more (vs. less) productive procrastination has less impact on available time. Consequently, perceiving (even identical) procrastination behaviors as more productive can further exacerbate ineffective time use. Our findings advance understanding of how subjective perceptions of productivity affect procrastination behavior and consumer time-use decisions, and offer practical implications for the design, development, and positioning of antiprocrastination tools and services.

Date: 2026
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