Managing to sweep in at the last minute and press send moments before a deadline can give us an “adrenaline buzz”, notes psychologist Wendy Dignan, which we’re unlikely to experience if we “take small chunks out of [a project] and just chip away at it”. It’s that buzz – that ‘by the seat of our pants’ feeling – that can make this behaviour so hard to stop.

We might tell ourselves that we function best under stress, then reaffirm that belief by looking back at all the times we’ve managed to pull it off, finding evidence for this ‘last-minute dot com’ coping strategy, Dignan says. “So in that way, [we can] get stuck in this horrible loop… The more you [do this] as a coping mechanism, the less able you are to back away from it. You practice firing those same neurons down those same pathways, and it takes a big leap of faith to do it differently.”

Plus, even if you think you’ve got active procrastination nailed, the long-term exposure to anxiety and stress could mean you “switch to passive procrastination”, adds Karlstedt. “Instead of feeling a rush of adrenaline as [you] get closer to a deadline, [you] feel paralysed and frozen.”

There are certain personality traits that might mean you are more susceptible to procrastination. “You are more likely to procrastinate as a means of motivation and self-regulation and self-regulation if you struggle with anxiety, self-criticism, [and] perfectionism,” Karlstedt explains. “Since high achievers struggle with many of [those] things listed, they are also often more likely to procrastinate because of the high expectations they place on themselves.”

Inside the last-minute mindset: “Why do I only feel motivated when a deadline is looming?”