Chronic procrastinating was one patient's way of coming to terms with heightened tension and fear of disorganization. Procrastinating represented an exaggeration of ego functions serving to delay immediate impulse discharge. The patient's procrastinating behaviour combined diverse defence mechanisms and arose in response to tension from several sources of conflict. This personality trait, which possibly stems also from a constitutional vulnerability to excitement, came to represent a style of behaviour useful for dealing not only with special psychological conflict, but with general adaptation.