Just like Christmas or New Year’s, Tax Day comes around every year, and this year is no exception.

Every year, people tend to wait until the last minute to file their taxes. Taking last year as an example, we see that as Tax Day gets progressively closer, the number of tax filings increases [1].

From a neutral standpoint, this doesn’t seem to make sense, since finishing taxes means the satisfaction of fulfilling a financial obligation [2], potentially getting a refund sooner, or having more time to check for mistakes. And not filing taxes on time can mean up to a 25 percent penalty on taxes owed [3]. What’s going on?

Why People Procrastinate on Their Taxes

A looming reason is simple: procrastination. Procrastination is the unnecessary delay of an action [4], even though the delay will cause unpleasant consequences [5], whether it is guilt, stress, rebuke, or penalty. Importantly, people are aware of these negative consequences.

People often blame procrastination on laziness or nonchalance, but it’s typically more emotion-based than effort- or skill-based. To experience procrastination is to experience an internal conflict. People are conflicted between two or more options that differ on how enjoyable, expensive, or time-consuming it is.

Although procrastinating tax filing can be due to a variety of reasons for any individual person, a common denominator across these reasons is that the process of filing taxes feels psychologically aversive or painful. When someone opens their tax program, they can choose between completing what is likely to seem like a lengthy, stressful, multi-step process or doing something else more enjoyable and entertaining, like streaming a Netflix show. Research predicts that many people are likely to choose the latter option.

People procrastinate to reduce negative emotions, like anxiety, shame, or embarrassment, that surface when they face their task. [6] It’s these emotions that people are looking to avoid, not necessarily the work itself.

Unfortunately, this can spiral into a negative self-reinforcing circle. When people avoid the work and choose the more fun option instead, they initially feel better. The psychological reward from avoiding a stressor is an effective short-term mood repair strategy—but it comes at a cost. Not only do people take longer to complete their goal, but they often also feel worse than if they had done it earlier. [7] Over time, prolonged procrastination can reinforce and compound anxiety, leading to more avoidance.

How to Overcome Tax Procrastination

One way to manage procrastination is to break up the ultimate goal—in this case, submitting the completed tax returns—into subgoals [8]. Dividing an ultimate goal into subgoals makes people feel like the ultimate goal is more attainable because each step feels smaller and more manageable than the goal alone. So, instead of thinking about the goal of submitting all your taxes, start by focusing just on completing one section—then the next, then the next. Or (if you’re in the U.S. or another country with both state and federal taxes) focus on filing your federal taxes first, rather than both federal and state.

Another way is to give yourself a goal range rather than a specific goal [9]. Research has found that giving yourself a range, like working for 10 to 20 minutes, compared to a single goal like working for 15 minutes, can be more effective for performance because there are two goalposts available rather than just one. So, you can tell yourself that you will complete five to 10 sections, or work for 20-30 minutes, before taking a break.

Finally, you can capitalize on the fresh start effect. [10] Sometimes, people give up because they feel like they have already failed. But if people see a temporal landmark—moments that seem to stand out meaningfully—like a new year or a new month, they are more likely to restart their goal. [11] If you think about the time after a lunch break as a fresh start, you’ll be more likely to finish those taxes than if you think of it as merely one in the afternoon.