When PhD ‘Procrastination’ Actually Isn't
When reading, thinking, and processing feel like procrastination: understanding the invisible work of PhD research and why it matters.
Why every PhD student thinks they’re the worst procrastinator in academia
Virtually every PhD student I’ve ever worked with has, at some point, confessed to me in hushed tones that they’re shocking procrastinators and / or can make progress with anything other than their PhD. They say it with such shame, such fear of being found out, and such conviction that everyone else is progressing smoothly, while they alone flounder.
In its classic definition, ‘procrastination’ involves choosing immediate gratification over long-term goals - like watching another episode on Netflix instead of preparing for tomorrow’s supervision meeting.
But when I dig a bit deeper with doctoral students, they’re rarely using it like this; in terms of their PhD work, the term has morphed into something else entirely. It’s become a form of self-criticism, a way to express anxiety about progress, and most problematically, a label for any work that doesn't produce immediate, visible output:
Reading but not writing? Procrastination.
Thinking through an argument? Procrastination.
Taking a walk to process complex ideas? Definitely procrastination.
Academically, we’re all about the very precise use of language, yet when it comes to our inner voice, we’re astonishingly careless with our terminology. And this mis-labelling can be uniquely harmful in doctoral research because it:
devalues necessary cognitive work
creates guilt around essential processing time
masks real issues that might need addressing
creates and reinforces unrealistic expectations about how research progresses
How did we get to this (mis)understanding?
The Institutional Framework
I think the problem starts with how institutions measure progress on doctoral programmes through tangible outputs: training completed, milestone documents, chapters submitted. All well intentioned to support progression through the programme, but at the level of the individual student this can feel like a real tension with the pre-output work of a PhD; this gap between institutional measures and research reality creating a constant pressure to translate real work into acceptable categories. Even when individual supervisors understand the need for processing time, the forms and frameworks we use often don’t have space to reflect this lived experience.
And these disconnects go beyond universities: recently, I chatted to a student who has to submit a regular timesheet to her funder, and was explicitly told she couldn’t list ‘thinking’ as an activity. Instead, she was told to code her essential cognitive work as ‘admin’. Just think about how bizarre that is: at the end of her PhD, her time sheets will tell of a journey entirely free from thinking - what’s she to take from that about the funder’s values?
When Thinking Doesn’t Fit the Schedule
The pressure which arises from this tension can be particularly acute for students who experience significant – and often unpredictable - variations in the time, energy and capacity for work available to them, such as disabled students, those with chronic conditions, neurodivergent students, part-time students, and student parents/carers. The institutional structure assumes cognitive work can carried out regularly and routinely, neatly contained within designated ‘PhD time’. Yet research thinking doesn’t respect these boundaries - breakthrough insights might come during a commute, while doing laundry, or in the middle of the night. Conversely, nothing at all may come during time you’ve designated for PhD work.
This inherent messiness creates a double burden of guilt: feeling like you’re procrastinating on your PhD during ‘real-life time’, then feeling like you’re procrastinating on life responsibilities when PhD thoughts demand attention during ‘non-PhD time’.
The Reality of Research Thinking
Real research thinking intertwines with daily life. Physical movement - walking, cleaning, routine tasks - often supports rather than detracts from cognitive processing. Yet this clashes with popular narratives about ‘deep focus’ work, which suggest that creating perfect focus conditions (and only this) will automatically lead to productivity, and work of intellectual value.
There’s also a practical challenge: when insights arrive during these non-desk-based activities, you often aren’t set up to capture them effectively. This can reinforce the feeling that only time spent at your desk ‘counts’ as real work.
Why traditional productivity advice fails doctoral researchers
Your brain is doing new work in new ways
The shift from earlier academic work to PhD research isn’t just about volume or difficulty – it’s about fundamentally different cognitive processes. Before your doctorate, you were primarily synthesising existing knowledge to answer known questions. Even at master’s level, there was usually a clear picture on the lid of the puzzle box.
PhD research is different. You’re not just solving a puzzle - you're creating the pieces while simultaneously figuring out what picture they might make. This requires holding multiple partial understandings, following uncertain paths, and trusting that connections will emerge.
Institutions can't measure what often matters most
Traditional academic structures, including supervision practices, are built around visible outputs. Progress reports usually ask what you've written, not what you’re processing. Career preparation adds another layer of pressure toward tangible achievements - papers, presentations, publications, posters, placements etc. etc.
The challenge is that these visible outputs represent only the final stage of a complex cognitive process. It’s like being asked to document a plant’s growth by measuring only the flowers, ignoring the essential root development happening underground.
Comparing your progress to others doesn’t work
Every PhD journey is individual. Someone doing archival or doctrinal research will progress at a completely different pace and pattern than someone doing extended overseas fieldwork. Yet students often torture themselves with comparisons, wondering why their progress doesn’t match their peers’, and assuming that ‘procrastination’ must be the cause even when they know they have been working steadily (been there, done that!).
The individualised journeys make it nearly impossible to find meaningful standard benchmarks for progress. Even within the same discipline, different methodological approaches require different rhythms of work and thought.
Your brain is working even when your fingers aren’t typing
The Neural Nature of Understanding
Think of knowledge connections forming like neurons seeking links. Recently, I saw a video of neurons connecting - they shot out tiny spider-threads, seeking around until they latched onto each other. I loved this so much. Your brain is doing similar work as you process complex ideas, seeking connections that aren’t yet visible.
This means you might be holding multiple partial understandings - several incomplete jigsaw puzzles - in your mind simultaneously. Some pieces aren’t ready to connect yet, and that’s not just normal – it’s necessary.
The Reality of Research Thinking
The journey from reading, to understanding, to using, involves multiple layers:
initial comprehension
contextual positioning
connection building
gap-filling
integration and application
I’ve noticed that students often try to skip straight from comprehension to application, not recognising the middle steps as legitimate work. This is why you might feel like you're ‘going in circles’ with an idea - your brain is actively processing, even when it feels like you’re stuck.
Validating the Invisible
Linear progress in research is largely a myth. Real understanding often moves in cycles, with periods of apparent stagnation followed by breakthrough moments. These breakthroughs often come when you’re not actively pushing - during a walk, in the shower, while doing dishes - because your brain needs space to process.
The day you realise reading can be both essential and avoidant
The Comfort of Tangible Progress
There's a certain comfort in measurable tasks - perfectly formatted references, organized files, coded data. Early in your PhD, these activities feel unquestionably productive. Every downloaded paper, every completed training, every coded interview feels like clear progress.
The Moment of Recognition
The shift comes when you realise more isn’t always better. Maybe you notice you’re not really absorbing what you’re reading. Maybe you’re downloading papers you’ll never read, convinced the perfect source is still out there somewhere. Maybe you’re recoding data to avoid actually analysing it.
This recognition often comes through supervision conversations. A good supervisor helps you see when you have ‘enough’ understanding to move forward, and when you’re using further reading as a shield against the vulnerability of original thought.
The Shift to Discernment
Developing judgment about your work patterns is part of doctoral growth. You learn to recognize when you're seeking security in familiar tasks, versus when you genuinely need more foundation. You start trusting partial understanding, accepting that perfect comprehension isn't the goal.
Better questions to ask yourself than 'am I procrastinating?'
Moving Beyond Binary Thinking
When you find yourself not writing, instead of asking ‘am I procrastinating?’, try these more precise questions to find out what you are doing:
what am I actually doing right now (be really specific)?
is what I’m doing goal-oriented or exploratory?
does what I’m doing differ from what I set out to do, and if so, how?
what am I actually working towards?
Questions for Goal-Oriented Work
When you have clear objectives:
What's the actual understanding or outcome I'm seeking?
How is my current activity serving this goal?
What alternative paths might work?
How can I make my progress visible?
Questions for Exploration
When you're in discovery mode:
What connections am I noticing?
How am I capturing partial insights?
Where’s the current edge of my partial understanding?
What patterns are emerging?
How can I make this exploration visible to others?
Managing Multiple Modes
Remember that you can be in both goal-oriented and exploratory modes simultaneously with different aspects of your research. The key is recognising which mode you're in at any given point, and adjusting your expectations accordingly.
From self-judgment to self-awareness
The path from viewing everything non-writing as procrastination to understanding the complex nature of research thinking isn’t easy. It requires unlearning ingrained habits of self-judgment and developing new ways to recognise and validate progress.
But here’s what changes: When you understand that doctoral research requires both visible and invisible work, you can start trusting your process. You can recognise when reading becomes avoidant, but also when walking becomes thinking. You can value both the tangible outputs and the essential cognitive work that produces them.
Most importantly, you can stop using the label ‘procrastination’ as a weapon against yourself and start seeing your research process for what it really is: complex, non-linear, and uniquely yours.]