Table 1 Contents of the 12-week internet-based intervention for procrastination

1. General introduction

Self-regulated learning, academic procrastination and other theories, self-regulated learning strategies.

Develop overall learning goals, understand deadlines, and set one study day per week.

2. Goal and time management

Set the purpose and content of the subgoals, train to prepare a to-do list before the study day and record the work progress during the study day.

Set and share subgoals, timelines, and checklists.

3. Manage unreasonable thoughts

Employ behavioural activation techniques, self-esteem strategies, and strengths-finding to encourage participants to see things positively.

Record success stories, personal abilities, and strengths.

4. Emotion regulation

Introduce the meaning of negative emotions, cognition, mindfulness and other methods to regulate negative emotions, and share video files for relaxation.

Mindfulness and relaxation exercises.

5. Self-motivation

Offer two self-motivation strategies: managing the learning environment and adopting self-reinforcement. Introduce work environment and study table design, self-reinforcing principles and benefits.

Optimize the learning environment and take photos to share; develop self-reinforcing strategies around each of your subgoals.

6. Distractions and temptations

Self-directed strategies are introduced to manage interference and temptation to guide students to make plans managing such scenarios in advance.

Complete the cognitive distraction “if...then...” sentence.

7. Prepare for the future

Aware of the inevitability of procrastination again and be prepared to deal with it

Organize the course resource catalogue.