Everyone Procrastinates Sometimes
I get a lot of practice working on procrastination issues, and I've noticed that their are four important reasons that people delay and delay and delay before starting a task, or drag a job out until the last possible moment.
You Enjoy the Tension
Many people get a thrill out of the tension of racing to a last minute deadline - they thrive on the drama of late nights and a heroic rescue. And if they don't have a huge project that legitimately demands all their effort, they put off little projects until they become major crises to be solved. If you're one of these people, you've learned that the cost of procrastinating is much greater than the thrill of the adrenaline. For you, I can help you realize what you are doing and why it's destructive. Then, we can find other outlets for that energy of yours.
You Don't Really Want To Do It
Maybe you got talked into "volunteering" for this job, and you never wanted to do it anyway. But now you're in a bind because you can't go back on the promise you made, but you hate the work you have to do. In a situation like this, many people will procrastinate until the last minute as a way of showing their anger. But it's not a very productive way to rebel, so I can help you find better ways of getting angry, and I can help you learn to say "no" in the first place, so this isn't so likely to happen again.
You're Afraid of Failing
If this project is very, very important to you, you might be afraid of what will happen if you can't live up to it. If you can't get it done, or you do a sloppy job, what will people think of you, and what will you think of yourself? So you put it off and put it off in the hope that it will just go away somehow. I can help you in three ways: by helping you believe in your own competence, by helping you think through what would really happen if you didn't succeed, and by helping you break the project down into smaller parts that don't seem quite so daunting.
You're Afraid of Succeeding
This reason sounds very strange - doesn't everyone want to succeed in a big project? Well, maybe not. Suppose that, if you do this job very well you'll get that promotion, but you really like the people around you in this job and you don't want to leave them behind. Suppose that finishing the dissertation lets you graduate on time, but then you'll have to deal with looking for a real job in a very bad market. If you're stuck in this sort of love/hate relationship, I can help you break free by facing up to what will really happen with success, and making a plan to deal with it.