Procrastination happens when the value of slacking off outweighs the value of getting work done now. One trick to fight procrastination, then, is to increase the value of working now— boosting what psychologists call its subjective value.

UO psychology professor Elliot Berkman, with doctoral candidate Jordan Miller-Ziegler, recently wrote a piece on procrastination for The Conversation. It was republished in the Los Angeles Times.

People would rather receive $84 now than $100 in three months, according to one study. This phenomenon is known as delayed discounting, and because getting something done is a delayed reward, it is also a factor in procrastination.

“The further away the deadline is, the less attractive it seems to work on the project right now,” Berkman and Miller-Ziegler write. “One way to increase the value of completing a task is to make the finish line seem closer. For example, vividly imagining a future reward reduces delay discounting.”

Another trick to counter procrastination is to reframe how and why you value your work.

“Connecting the project to more immediate sources of value, such as life goals or core values, can fill the deficit in subjective value that underlies procrastination.”

For more, see “The psychological origins of procrastination – and how we can stop putting things off.”

Berkman’s research focuses on motivational and cognitive factors that contribute to success and failure in goal pursuit, and the neural systems behind them. He writes a blog, The Motivated Brain, for Psychology Today.