A study says if your trip is confirmed but your tickets aren’t booked, the villain may be procrastination and not laziness

The wedding invitation arrived weeks ago. You know you are going. You have even discussed what to wear. Your ticket, however, remains unbooked. Every evening, you promise to finish it tomorrow. Eventually, departure is close enough to make the decision urgent.

If you are booking your tickets late it can reflect you are procrastinating. When someone delays despite knowing that they have plans, the wait can definitely cause problems. However, practical constraints can produce the same behaviour. Research offers possible explanations rather than a diagnosis based on your booking history.

When does delayed booking become procrastination?

Psychologist Piers Steel examined procrastination in a major 2007 review in Psychological Bulletin. His analysis drew on 691 correlations from previous research.


Factors including task unpleasantness and impulsiveness were associated with procrastination. The work examined self-regulation: how people guide their actions towards intended goals. An intention such as “I must book the ticket” does not always become action.

A traveller may dislike comparing departure times or committing money. Opening the booking page means confronting that task. However, waiting for leave approval is different. The person may need information before choosing. A late purchase alone cannot establish that someone procrastinated.

Why can putting off a ticket booking feel good?

Psychologists Fuschia Sirois and Timothy Pychyl proposed an explanation in their 2013 paper on procrastination and short-term mood regulation. Their account suggests that delaying an unpleasant task can help people feel better immediately. The consequences are passed to their future selves.

Imagine opening a booking app after a tiring day. Choosing feels irritating. You close it and watch something enjoyable. The irritation disappears for now. The booking remains.

The immediate reward is relief in the above example. You need not dislike travelling to avoid the feelings attached to arranging it. The travel example illustrates the theory. Sirois and Pychyl’s paper did not directly establish why people leave tickets unbooked.

Can having several good options delay the decision?

Psychologists Amos Tversky and Eldar Shafir investigated decision deferral in their 1992 paper, Choice Under Conflict. Their studies showed that conflict between alternatives could increase postponement. Adding or improving an option could sometimes make people more inclined to delay.

In one experiment, participants considered choices involving student apartments or financial gambles. They could select an available option or seek another at a cost.

The research challenged the assumption that better choices necessarily make deciding easier. For a traveller, one departure may be cheaper while another arrives at a convenient time. Neither clearly wins.

Repeatedly searching can then replace choosing. “I’m still comparing” may describe genuine research, but it can also leave the original conflict unresolved. Applying the finding to ticket booking is an interpretation. The experiments did not test every complication involved in arranging travel.

Why does an approaching departure suddenly create motivation?

Temporal motivation theory, developed by Steel and psychologist Cornelius Konig, considers how time influences motivation. A central idea is that distant outcomes can carry less motivational weight than immediate ones. As an outcome approaches, its importance can become harder to ignore.

A journey next month may feel remote. Tonight’s inconvenience feels immediate. Near departure, the balance changes. Securing the journey now feels pressing enough to overcome the reluctance to book.

The framework helps explain urgency. It does not establish that leaving everything late produces better decisions or that all late bookers enjoy pressure.

How can you stop delaying the “I should book” attitude and turn it into action?

Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer’s research on implementation intentions offers one approach. An implementation intention connects a specific situation with a planned response. Instead of relying on a general intention, you decide when action will happen.

For example: “If I finish dinner on Tuesday, I will open the booking page and choose a suitable departure.”

Gollwitzer’s 1999 paper reviewed research shows how these plans can help people translate goals into action. The travel example is an application rather than a tested guarantee. A plan also needs to fit reality so you need to plan accordingly and take proper action.