Time orientations of procrastinators: Focusing on the past, present, or future?

The relationship between cognitive and behavioral forms of procrastination and perceptions of time were assessed from self-reported measures. Particip ants (N = 215) completed measures of decisional procrastination, avoidant p rocrastination, and temporal orientation (i.e., past, present, or future fo cused). Zero order correlates showed that both decisional and avoidant proc rastination tendencies were related significantly positively to past orient ation and negatively to future orientation. Furthermore, maximum likelihood factor analyses (varimax rotations) revealed a three factor structure with eigenvalues greater than one that explained 68% of the common variance. Bo th decisional and avoidant procrastination tendencies loaded negatively wit h future orientation. Past and present orientations each loaded on independ ent factors.