Hiding Within

It turns out procrastination is not typically a function of laziness, apathy, or work ethic as it is often regarded to be. It's a neurotic self-defense behavior that develops to protect a person's sense of self-worth.

You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability – which is pretty much everything.

David Cain, Procrastination Is Not Laziness