Vicious circles of procrastination? How workplace procrastination is related from one day to the next.

Abstract

Purpose: The goal of the present paper is to investigate potential vicious circles of workplace procrastination. Previous research indicates that unfinished tasks have a detrimental effect on sleep quality and that sleep is related to procrastination. Thus, we assume that procrastination on a given workday might result in more unfinished tasks, impaired sleep quality, and subsequently higher risks for further procrastination on the following workday. Additionally, indirect effects via reduced self-efficacy and increased time pressure were tested as well. Design/Methodology: To investigate within-person processes, we conducted a two-week diary study with three measurement occasions per workday. Overall, a total of 549 day-level data sets from 89participants were analysed in multilevel analyses. Results: Contrary to our assumption, procrastination on a given workday was not directly related to procrastination on the following workday, neither were unfinished tasks related to sleep quality. However, as expected, procrastination predicted unfinished tasks, and sleep quality and time pressure (but not self-efficacy) predicted procrastination. Results further revealed a serial indirect effect: More procrastination on a given workday was significantly related to more procrastination on the following workday via more unfinished tasks and subsequently increased time pressure on the next workday. Limitations: Variance decomposition (similar to person-mean centering) affects the interpretation of the results.Research/Practical ImplicationsFuture research should investigate how the vicious circle of procrastination via more unfinished tasks and increased time pressure on the next workday can be interrupted. Originality/Value: Using a diary study design enabled us to investigate potential vicious circles of workplace procrastination.