An 18-year-long study published in Journal of Personality & Social Psychology finds that people tend to procrastinate less as they move through young adulthood. Research on procrastination has mostly focused on short-term behavior, largely in academic settings and over relatively brief periods. These studies have been useful for identifying what leads people to delay tasks and the immediate consequences for performance and well-being, but they don’t say much about whether procrastination changes across longer stretches of life, or whether it stays fairly constant as people grow older. It is unclear, then, whether procrastination should be understood primarily as a context-dependent behavior or as a more enduring individual difference. Lisa Bäulke and colleagues addressed this gap by examining procrastination across the transition from late adolescence into adulthood. They sought to determine whether procrastination shows both stability and change over time, and how it develops alongside broader personality traits. The study was also motivated by the possibility that major life transitions, particularly the shift from education to the workforce, may shape patterns of procrastination. By following individuals …