Your test is tomorrow, but you start cleaning your room instead of studying. Why? Many people think procrastination means being lazy.

But research says it is often about escaping bad feelings. Studying feels boring or stressful, so we do something else to feel better for a short time. Blaming yourself can make it worse. Try a very small first step, like just opening your textbook.

Procrastination is often seen as simple laziness, but research suggests otherwise. In 2007, the psychologist Piers Steel combined data from over 200 studies. He found that procrastination was most strongly linked to unpleasant tasks, impulsiveness, low confidence, distant deadlines and low conscientiousness. Perfectionism, by contrast, was only weakly related. Other researchers argue that procrastination is really about managing our mood.

When a task makes us anxious or bored, doing something else gives us quick relief, but the costs come later. In a 1997 study, students who procrastinated felt less stress early in the term but more stress and illness at the end. A 2010 study also found that students who forgave themselves procrastinated less before the next exam.

Procrastination is commonly blamed on laziness, but the research points elsewhere. In 2007, Piers Steel published a meta-analysis drawing on 691 correlations. The strongest correlates were task aversiveness, impulsiveness and distractibility, low self-efficacy, the distance of deadlines, and low conscientiousness. Perfectionism, often named as a cause, showed only a weak and unclear relationship.

Steel interpreted these findings through a motivational equation, in which expectancy multiplied by value is divided by impulsiveness multiplied by delay. The reward of studying lies weeks away, while the reward of a smartphone is immediate, so the equation predicts frequent delay. Most of these data are cross-sectional self-reports, however, so they cannot establish which way causation runs. More recently, researchers have recast procrastination as short-term mood repair.

Avoiding an unpleasant task brings instant relief, and the cost arrives later. Two studies, each based on a single group of students, fit this view. In 1997, procrastinating students reported less stress early in the term but more stress and illness by its end, and also received lower grades on all assignments. And in 2010, students who forgave themselves for procrastinating before one exam procrastinated less before the next.