What is precrastination? The opposite of procrastinating has downsides

Procrastination has its negative connotations — but what about precrastination?

Rather than putting things off until the last possible minute, precrastination is considered the opposite of procrastination. This is when you complete your task as soon as possible — often before it needs to be done — with the intention of not having to think about it anymore.

Precrastination is when you do something early “at an extra expense,” psychologist Kyle Sauerberger wrote in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science in 2019.

While this may seem like something to strive for, some psychologists believe that prescrastination also has downsides, such as using extra energy on a task or rushing just to feel the relief of having it done.

“One can envision precrastination and procrastination as two extremes,” Christopher Gehrig, a psychology professor at Helmut Schmidt University in Germany, told The Guardian recently. “People may precrastinate out of the fear of not being able to finish something on time.”

Gherig suggested that the impact of stress or burnout can be part of precrastination, and he even connected it to neuroticism in a previous study.

“Rather than feeling intrinsically rewarded by accomplishing goals – by checking things off their to-do lists – as conscientious people are, those high in neuroticism want to get things done because it causes them anxiety to have many tasks to do,” Sauerberger added.

The concept of precrastination first appeared by accident in a 2014 study. In the study, researchers asked students to pick up one of two buckets and carry them to the end of an alley, with one bucket being closer to the endpoint.

Researchers emphasized that participants should choose the easier task, expecting them to pick up the bucket toward the end and carry it a shorter distance. Surprisingly, participants chose the bucket closer to the starting position, carrying it farther than if they had chosen the other bucket — because they wanted to get it over with.

“Our findings suggest that the desire to relieve the stress of maintaining that information in working memory can cause us to over-exert ourselves physically or take extra risks,” scientist and study author David Rosenbaum said in a press release at the time. “Their desire to lighten their mental load was so strong that they were willing to expend quite a bit of extra physical effort to do so.”

Precrastination is essentially about rushing to get something done to get the weight off your shoulders.

“[It’s] the inclination to complete tasks quickly just for the sake of getting things done sooner rather than later,” Ed Wasserman, a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Iowa, explained to The Guardian.

While there’s no “right way” to do anything, if you feel you precrastinate, it might be wise to put off tasks that aren’t of high priority.

“The special danger of precrastination is that, unlike procrastination, it doesn’t feel naughty,” writer Oliver Burkeman wrote in a 2014 column in The Guardian.

“A healthy balance between precrastination and procrastination may involve effectively planning and prioritizing tasks without feeling too pressured to complete them immediately,” Gehrig advised.