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Helen Coffey, The Independent

There’s a story that has haunted me for years. Seven years, to be precise — because, much like the bad luck that comes from breaking a mirror, that’s the amount of time it takes for your credit record to be scrubbed clean of late payments (or “delinquencies”, as they are rather extravagantly known). This story doesn’t involve me being profligate or bad with money. It involves me being defeated by my one true nemesis: life admin. When I was in my late twenties, I moved out of a shared flat. All of the utility bills were paid out of a bank account in my name. When I left, I asked my old housemates to “sort it out”. Part of me knew, deep down, that I should take matters into my own hands rather than trust three random women I’d met through Spareroom.co.uk: cancel all the direct debits; shut down the now defunct account. But whenever I thought about it, my head felt hot and fuzzy. I’d need to find letters and reference numbers, I’d have to call up and sit on hold listening to terrible music or fill in online forms. Writing it down now, these things sound like the most minor of irritants. Back then, they felt like the most major of stumbling blocks.

So I just did... nothing. Ignored it, never looked at the account again, and moved on with my life. Until, that is, years later, when it came time to apply for a mortgage and I realised my credit score was in the toilet. Unbeknownst to me, I owed Santander thousands of pounds. The bills had continued to come out of the account, even though there was no money being paid into it; the unarranged overdraft got maxed out and started accruing substantial interest. I cleared out my savings paying it all back — those former flatmates were long gone, lost somewhere in the sprawling expanse of the city — but there remained a black mark against my name regardless.

Whenever I think about this incident, I still can’t shake the deep sense of shame it provokes within me. My inexplicable, irrational aversion to life admin — to form-filling and “grown-up” tasks — had landed me in a completely avoidable mess. At the time, I hid what had happened from everyone, and sat quietly stewing in my own embarrassment and self-loathing. I couldn’t even begin to explain the cause of my financially ruinous procrastination, even to myself. But it turns out I’m not alone. I’ve since discovered lots of seemingly competent people have stories like this, whether it’s buying hundreds of pounds worth of clothes online that don’t fit and missing the deadline to return them; putting off filing a tax return and incurring increasing fines (and the wrath of the Inland Revenue); forgetting to pay car tax or parking fines; studiously ignoring the whole pension thing and just hoping for the best come retirement...

“Research shows that procrastination is a universal phenomenon — it affects people worldwide from all backgrounds,” says productivity coach Juliet Landau-Pope, though she highlights that those affected by ADHD and other forms of neurodiversity can be more susceptible. “Issues relating to executive function — areas in the brain that impact decision-making and focus — can lead to chronic disorganisation,” she adds. According to one piece of 2023 research, Britons put off almost 100 pieces of life admin each year. Anyone can be afflicted by “life admin anxiety”, even those who aren’t prone to it, depending on what’s going on elsewhere. “It can affect any one of us at certain times, even if we’re not naturally anxious,” says psychotherapist Helen Wells. “If we’ve got a lot going on in other areas of our life, we can get admin anxiety. But if we’re naturally anxious or a perfectionist, and we haven’t got coping tools, we almost certainly go down a path that can be debilitating. You miss the deadline; the fear and anxiety kicks in; the thought of dealing with it becomes overwhelming. That’s when we start to go into avoidance.”

When we feel paralysed and unable to complete mundane but necessary jobs, there’s often a vicious cycle that ensues: we put it off, we procrastinate and avoid it, it becomes increasingly stressful, we go into overwhelm mode, we put it off some more... and repeat, ad infinitum. In some cases, when we have few coping strategies to manage it, this stress “can really impact our ability to function”, adds Wells.

Understanding the reasons behind our reticence can be key to shifting deep-rooted patterns of behaviour. If you notice the same issues repeatedly cropping up — you always end up in distress because of late payments, for instance, or you never get job applications in on time and keep missing out on dream opportunities — it might be worth seeking professional help. “What are the underlying patterns and themes that are going on there?” asks Wells. “If it’s getting to the stage where the stress overload and anxiety is just too much, consider seeing a therapist who might be able to guide you and develop some coping strategies.”