The paper describes the current state of the procrastination phenomenon in professional work, reviews the basic unexplored aspects in this area, and highlights the promising areas of scientific analysis. The survey of the existing literature periodization shows that the quantity of researches devoted to procrastination is growing exponentially every year. In spite of a pronounced research interest in this construct, in native and foreign psychological science procrastination phenomenon in the professional work is represented insufficiently. Firstly, there is no common and generally accepted definition of procrastination (Corkin, Yu, Lindt, 2011; Steel, 2010; Krause, Freund, 2014), that suggests that there is a deep terminological crisis in this area. Secondly, the characteristic of delaying the implementation of the elements of workload is represented only by the example of a fairly narrow range of professional activities, which makes it relevant to study the specificity of the differentiated functioning of the phenomenon on the material of a wide range of professions. Thirdly, in psychology there are no information about the peculiarities of the so-called “active” procrastination manifestations in professional activity, which is the tendency of conscious assignments delaying to achieve the optimum final result (Chu, Choi, 2005; Choi, Moran, 2009). Fourthly, there is an acute shortage of standardized psychodiagnostic tools to evaluate this phenomenon in work (most of the existing methods have been tested on samples of students and are aimed at identifying academic procrastination). In the fifth place, there are no science-based allocation of methods of coping with destructive manifestations of the psychological strategy of the job functions postponement in a professional work.

The modern world imposes strict conditions on people in various types of activities. A huge amount of processed information, tight timelines and other factors may cause people’s inability to cope with their tasks. Thus, there is a popular habit to put off the work without thinking about the consequences. This trait called procrastination is inherent to a million people all over the world. The problem of procrastination is just beginning to develop in Russia. Nowadays lots of foreign research and foreign questionnaires are being translated and approbated. The aim of this research is to identify the level of athletes’ procrastination, and define the differences of procrastination patterns in individual and team sports athletes. Also we want to study the relationship between procrastination and athletes’ personal characteristics such as extroversion, neuroticism, control over the actions, motivation to success, anxiety, time perspective and decision-making style (coping), and also indicators of state anxiety using a sample of individual athletes (boxing, unarmed self-defence, judo, karate, kickboxing, wrestling, taekwondo) and teams (hockey, football, volleyball). Correlation analysis shows structural differences of procrastination manifestations in different types of sport. Regression analysis shows that in athletes of individual sports (model: p = 0,002, adjusted R2 = 0,368) there is only one significant predictor of procrastination - the negative past (p = 0,007, β = 0,495). 

The negative past (p = 0,003, β = 0,463), the control over the planning of the action (p = 0,05, β = -0.220) and the monitoring of the implementation of the action (p = 0,003, β = -0,465) are the predictors of procrastination in team sports (model: p = 0,002, adjusred R2 = 0,368).

Nowadays athletes in order to achieve high results and achievements should donate their own interests and private life because of spending much more time for countless flights, acclimatization, everyday workout and competition. So they are short of time to fully replenish their psychological and physiological resources, resulting in accumulation of negative human functional states. Without application of any external psychological interventions there is a high probability of occurrence and development of occupational deteriorations in athletes. The main objective of this theoretical research was to identify and analyze the specificity of occupational deteriorations which can develop in sport as a career. In the presented research paper we described the major occupational deteriorations such as burnout (Maslach et al, 2008), workaholism (Schaufeli et al., 2008), perfectionism (Xolmogorova, 2010), type A behaviour (Ryska et al., 1999) and procrastination (Milgram et al., 2000). 

Accumulation of negative human functional states can entail one or even more occupational deteriorations that will play important role in career termination from sport. Workaholism, burnout, perfectionism, type A Behaviour and procrastination has their own specific manifestations, which can also appear in postretirement from sport activity. The most popular approaches to occupational deteriorations, operationalization and specific features of their appearance and particular manifestations are emphasized, and also various consequences in athlete’s life are described. Thus, occupational deteriorations are one of the most topical and pressed forward issues, which need further development in the framework of conceptualization and inventory development in modern psychology.

The modern world sets high requirements for work structure. Therefore, a great number of services become outsourcing. In order to reduce their charges, various enterprises found virtual project teams (PT). The main problems in this decision are connected with high necessity of PT members’ self-regulation. One of the reasons of PT members’ self-regulation failure is procrastination phenomenon. Over 15-25% of people demonstrate procrastination behaviour. Procrastination can be analysed as a type of inadequate coping behaviour, and it correlates with high level of stress. Thus, the main purpose of this research is to analyze the procrastination phenomenon in PT members with different job stress level.

We collected the following data: objective measures (age, gender); General Procrastination Scale (Lay, 1986); Job Diagnostic Survey (Hackman, Oldham, 1980); Survey for actual and chronic stress manifestation assessment (Leonova, 2004). 52 respondents from several PTs were under study. Subjects show high level of stress manifestation and moderate level of procrastination. Regression analysis was also conducted (adj. R-squared=0.457, p<0.001). Only appraisal of chronic resource exhaustion and job experience emerged as significant predictors of procrastination. Conducted research should help in PT members’ job organization in order to protect them from deadline breakdowns.