Van Eerde & Klingsieck (2018): Overcoming Procrastination?
Van Eerde and Klingsieck's 2018 meta-analysis in Educational Research Review pooled controlled intervention studies to ask whether procrastination can actually be reduced, not just described. The answer was yes: interventions produced a large average reduction in procrastination compared with controls, and cognitive behavioural approaches, which combine changing unhelpful thoughts with concrete behavioural structure, outperformed other approach types. It is the field's core evidence that procrastination responds to treatment rather than being a fixed trait.
| Citation | Van Eerde, W., & Klingsieck, K. B. (2018). Overcoming procrastination? A meta-analysis of intervention studies. Educational Research Review, 25, 73–85. |
|---|---|
| Study type | Meta-analysis of controlled procrastination intervention studies |
| Key finding | Interventions reduced procrastination with a large pooled effect versus controls; cognitive behavioural interventions showed the strongest effects |
| Approaches compared | Cognitive behavioural therapy, self-regulation and strengths-based trainings, acceptance-based and coaching approaches |
What the study found
The authors gathered experimental and quasi-experimental studies that tried to reduce procrastination and measured it before and after against a comparison group. Across the pooled trials, treated participants ended up substantially less procrastinating than controls, one of the larger intervention effects in educational psychology. Grouping interventions by type, cognitive behavioural approaches came out strongest, while self-management trainings and other approaches helped less consistently. Effects held across student samples and were not obviously explained by study quality.
Why it matters
Correlational research can describe procrastination forever without proving anything can be done about it. This meta-analysis, alongside Rozental's 2017 clinical work, is the evidence that deliberate intervention changes the behaviour, and that the winning recipe pairs cognitive work (challenging avoidance-justifying thoughts) with behavioural structure (planned starts, small steps, stimulus control). Most techniques on this site are the self-administered versions of exactly those ingredients.
Caveats
The pool of eligible trials was small, a few dozen studies, so subgroup comparisons between intervention types rest on thin slices of data. Outcomes were almost all self-reported procrastination rather than observed behaviour, samples were mostly students, and follow-up periods were short, so durability is less established than the immediate effect. Publication bias in a small literature could also inflate the pooled estimate.
Peer-reviewed meta-analysis in Educational Research Review (Elsevier). Verified via Crossref.
Related
Rozental's clinical intervention researchImplementation Intentions, a core behavioural ingredient
Frequently asked questions
Can procrastination actually be cured?
It can be substantially reduced. This meta-analysis found large average improvements from structured interventions, especially cognitive behavioural ones. 'Cured' is the wrong frame though: the tendency to delay aversive tasks does not vanish, you build systems and habits that stop it deciding your behaviour.
What is the most effective treatment for procrastination?
On current evidence, cognitive behavioural approaches: identifying the thoughts that justify delay, then committing to specific, scheduled, small first steps. Self-help versions of the same ingredients, like implementation intentions and stimulus control, carry much of the effect.