"I'll Deal with It Later": The Comfort of Indefinite Postponement

This thought is quieter than the others. It does not defend the habit. It does not minimize it. It simply moves it to a shelf you will get to at some unspecified point in the future. The problem is acknowledged. The solution is deferred. And the deferral can last a lifetime.

How “later” works

“I’ll deal with it later” is a procrastination structure applied to habit change. A meta-analytic review of procrastination research found that it is best understood not as a time-management failure but as a self-regulation failure driven by the priority of short-term mood regulation [2].

The thought works in three steps:

1. Acknowledge the problem. This satisfies the part of you that knows the habit needs to change.
2. Defer the action. This satisfies the part that does not want to face the discomfort now.
3. Maintain the deferral indefinitely. Because “later” has no deadline, it never becomes urgent enough to act on.

Research on procrastination as mood regulation found that people delay aversive tasks specifically to avoid negative feelings in the present, at the cost of worse outcomes for their future selves [1]. Habit change is aversive. Deferring it feels like relief.

A fictional example

The following is an illustrative example, not a real person’s story.

Patrick has known for a year that his evening snacking is a problem. He eats well during the day and then consumes a thousand extra calories between 9pm and midnight, often without registering what he has eaten. He has read about it, thought about it, and told himself many times that he will address it.

• What he thinks: “I know I need to deal with this. But not tonight. I’ve had a long day. I’ll figure out a plan this weekend.”
• What he feels: A brief relief, followed by nothing. The problem recedes to the background.
• What he does: The same thing the following evening. And the weekend passes without a plan.

Patrick has been “about to deal with it” for twelve months. The thought “I’ll deal with it later” has been renewed so many times that it no longer feels like a decision. It feels like a fact about the future.

The discounting of future consequences

Temporal discounting, the tendency to undervalue future outcomes relative to present ones, is one of the most robust findings in behavioral economics [3]. A formal model of present-biased preferences shows how this leads directly to procrastination: the cost of acting now looms larger than the cost of acting later, so “later” is always preferred, and the preference renews itself each day [4].

For Patrick, the discomfort of not snacking tonight is vivid and immediate. The benefits of stopping, better sleep, reduced weight, improved self-regard, are abstract and diffuse. Each evening, the calculation tips the same way: the cost of acting is close and the benefit of acting is far.

Experiments have shown that when people are upset, they prioritize immediate comfort over long-term goals, choosing snacks, procrastinating on tasks and selecting immediate gratification over larger delayed rewards [6]. The evening, with its accumulated fatigue and stress, is exactly the state in which “later” is most appealing.

The stranger in the future

Research on future self-continuity suggests that the degree to which you feel connected to your future self affects your willingness to make sacrifices now for their benefit [5]. When the future self feels like a different person, the costs you defer to them feel like someone else’s problem.

Patrick, exhausted at 9pm, does not feel connected to Patrick at the doctor’s office in five years. He does not feel connected to Patrick who cannot fit into his clothes next month. Those are other people, or at least other versions of himself who are not here and not in need.

“I’ll deal with it later” is, in part, a promise made to a stranger.

Questions to examine the thought

When “I’ll deal with it later” arrives:

1. When is later? Give it a date. If you cannot, the thought is not a plan.
2. How many times have you said this? Not approximately. Try to remember specific occasions.
3. What will be different later? If nothing changes in your circumstances, why would the outcome be different?
4. What is the cost of waiting? Not the abstract, eventual cost. What does the habit cost you this week?
5. What is the smallest thing you could do right now? Not the full solution. One step. Opening a browser tab. Writing a list. Telling one person.

The smallest version of now

The alternative to “later” is not a dramatic, immediate overhaul. It is one small action taken now, when the thought is fresh.

Patrick does not need to solve the evening snacking tonight. He needs to take one step that makes “later” a date on the calendar rather than a feeling in his chest. Call the GP. Write down what he eats tonight. Tell his partner he wants to change. Set a timer for 9pm with a reminder.

Any one of those moves the problem from the shelf back to his hands. The rest can wait. But the first step cannot.

For the pattern of deferring to a future start date, see “I’ll start Monday” and why the perfect start date keeps moving. For the related thought that uses a coming event as a reason to wait, see “I’ll quit after this event” and the moving finish line.

When to get more support. If “I’ll deal with it later” has been your response for months or years, and the pattern extends to other important areas of your life, chronic procrastination may be part of a broader pattern worth exploring with a therapist. It is often connected to anxiety, perfectionism or avoidant coping. In the US, call or text 988 if you are in crisis. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans are on 116 123.