Christopher Columbus is certainly a very controversial historical figure, and the crashing waves this dispute unleashes are tall enough to capsize the Santa Maria and the rest of the Spanish Armada in one swoop. He is praised by some as a daring Genoan explorer, without whom it may have taken a few hundred years longer for the world to be fully charted. On the other hand, there are others who contest Columbus' merits and vilify him as a brutal invader who took advantage of the indigenes' naivete, forcing them into slavery and decimating the local population.
However, one thing is certain: the voyage he set out on in 1492 with the blessings - and gold - of the King and Queen of Spain would not only alter the course of history but cartography as well. Let's embark on a journey through some of the most important moments in the life of the man who bridged the old world and the new one.

Columbus Day celebrations around the globe

To acknowledge his achievements, the United States celebrates Columbus Day on October 12. On this day back in 1492 Columbus dropped anchor in the Bahamas, while en route to what he believed were the Indies.
Not all countries are so eager to honor the arguably the most famous navigator in the world though. In Venezuela, for instance, October 12 marks the celebration of 'Día de la Resistencia Indigena', which translates to 'The Day of the Indigenous Resistance', commemorating the locals' fight against the invasion of the Conquistadors; a fairly recent event, it began in 2004, when a century-old statue of the Italian navigator was torn down.
Other Latin American nations have different names for it, like Argentina's 'Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity', Uruguay's 'Day of the Americas', Peru's 'Day of the Discovery of America' or Colombia's 'Day of the Races'. 

Was Columbus the first explorer to drop anchor on the American continent?

As it turns out, not exactly. Christopher Columbus did plant Spain's 'Castile and Leon' flag on American soil, no argument here. Nonetheless, the first footprints on the shore are said to belong to Leif Eriksson, a Norse explorer from Iceland. Historical records suggest that on the return journey to Greenland, Eriksson strayed from the charted path and the winds guided his ship to a region in North America, which he dubbed 'Vinland'. This story is not without controversy either, as some accounts like the 'Groenlendinga Saga' place a trader by the name of Bjarni Herjulfsson in the area 14 years ahead of Eriksson. What's more, according to saga, Leif Eriksson did not come to the new world due to a course-plotting error. Instead, he learned about Vinland from Herjulfsson and decided to check it out for himself. Whoever was first, Columbus' expedition paved the way for European powers to colonize the new continent and gain access to its abundance of resources.

The new world or the old one?

It might sound strange, but our expert navigator never really accepted the fact that his journeys didn't take him to an undiscovered part of the Indies and that he had, in fact, found a completely new and uncharted landmass. His journal entries show us that he refused to budge, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, and continued to believe he was really close to the East Indies. The confusion likely comes from a miscalculation he made when estimating the Earth's size.

The exploits of Christopher Columbus were mapped out chronologically using Office Timeline, a professional and easy to use Gantt chart maker that can quickly generate a beautiful graphic representation for your project's stages within minutes. You can try it out in the free version, but access to the more complex features such as 'Swimlanes' is only available in the Pro edition. Download the Christopher Columbus timeline as a .PPT file and have fun moving the elements around, using either our add-in or the native PowerPoint controls.

Managing a project, big or small, requires effective team coordination and constant communication with management and clients. That usually means a lot of planning, tracking, sharing, aligning, updating, presenting, updating again, and sharing again. No wonder collaboration is one of most common feature requests we get from the Office Timeline Online community.

You wanted a simple collaborative tool to help you build presentation-ready timelines, manage them together with your colleagues, and share them with anyone without too much fuss. We heard you, and we delivered.

Thanks to your valuable feedback and after months of hard work from our development team, we're excited to let you know we've introduced collaboration in Office Timeline Online, so you can streamline planning, align teams, and clue in stakeholders fast and easily.

Share and collaborate on timelines with anyone

Office Timeline Online now lets you share a timeline in different ways depending on who you are working with and what your intention is. It is simple and intuitive.

• Do you want your team members to collaborate on a timeline with you? Invite them as collaborators and choose whether you allow them to edit your plan and share it further or not. You can add or remove collaborators or change their permissions at any time, at the click of a button.





• Do you need a quick and easy way to share your updated plan with execs or clients? It takes a second to create a shareable, view-only link to your timeline and send it to them. Because we know they're busy, we made it so that they can access it instantly, without having to create an account or log in to Office Timeline Online.

To find out more about collaborating in Office Timeline Online, please see our detailed how-to guide here.

Ready to share your timeline with others? Log in to the web app now and try out the new features for yourself – we can't wait to hear what you think!

Why use a timeline maker?

Complicated information such as plans, events or projects are better understood when visualized. Timeline software has become an essential tool for quickly visualizing and communicating projects, plans or roadmaps in a way that is easy for audiences to understand. Business professionals such as planners and project managers often use timeline makers to illustrate complex event sequencing or the chronological order of project work. Whether it’d be for reporting on past progress, present status and future events, or communicating the critical milestones required to attain a business goal, timeline creators are the most effective and efficient way to do it.

How to choose the best timeline creator

Depending on the user’s needs and requirements, the answer to this question will vary. However, there are some fundamentals that should always be considered when evaluating any timeline maker software:

• What type of visuals will it produce?
• Does it have a simple, modern and easy-to-use interface?
• Will it synchronize with other apps like Microsoft Excel?
• Is it compatible with modern browsers and operating systems?
• Does it enable rich customization of the visual once it has been created?
• Is it reasonably priced?
• Is it improving and developing rapidly?

The ultimate timeline maker list

There are many options available on the market, so finding the best fit can be a challenge. To get you started, we’ve put together a list of 10 best timeline creators. The scale used for ranking these was based on the several points listed above.

1. Office Timeline

Timeline maker and Gantt chart creator that comes in two flavors: as the desktop add-in Office Timeline and web-based app Office Timeline Online; suitable for any non-tech users, but specifically addressing project management professionals.

• Type of visuals produced (1 p): Designed as a PowerPoint extension, the desktop tool allows the fast creation of professional-looking timelines and Gantt charts right inside the popular slide-maker platform. The resulted visuals can be downloaded as native PowerPoint slides that can be easily opened and edited by third parties without having to install the app. The same type of visuals is produced by its online counterpart. Other formats to which the graphics can be exported are .png image and Excel file.
• Interface (1 p): The desktop add-in boasts an intuitive interface, a smart layout engine which automatically generates your visual, and a Timeline Creator Wizard that assists new users in getting familiarized with the tool more easily. The online app ensures simplicity and easy data management with a drag & drop interface.
• Sync with other apps (1 p): The desktop add-in integrates with Microsoft Project, Excel, Smartsheet, and Wrike, whereas the online app allows data import from Excel
• Browser/OS compatibility (1 p): OTL is compatible with Windows OS, while OTO works in any browser, whether Mac or Windows OS is used
• Customization options (1 p): Both versions provide a host of customization and styling functionalities (shapes, colors, percentage complete, duration, status indicators) for an enhanced and refined differentiation between events, a rich gallery of pre-designed templates and the ability to import files to help users get started faster.
• Price (1 p): OTL comes in a free and paid version, the latter at $59 for a 1-year license; the basic plan is fully functional, however the paid package unlocks extra functionalities such as import and synch from MS Project and Excel, more items allowed on a slide, completion percentage and others. OTO has a similar pricing system, users having the possibility to opt for a free account (with unlimited number of milestones and tasks to add to a timeline, but the ones which exceed 10 items are watermarked) or pay $59/year for the Plus edition of the tool (watermark removed).
• State of development (1 p): Continuous development through regular updates that give users access to new features or enhancements without having to pay extra once they acquire their license. Here is the desktop add-in’s version history, and the online app’s one can be found here.

Final rating: 7/7

2. Tiki-Toki

General description: Web-based timeline maker software that provides numerous use scenarios to streamline various projects (suitable for businesses, teachers, charities or lawyers).

• Type of visuals produced (1 p): Interactive, multimedia timelines created directly in the browser and which can be shared as unique, embeddable URLs; users can choose between 2D and 3D views to visually represent biographies, history and legal timelines, schedules and others.
• Interface (1 p): Built-in search and filtering functions, four different view types, zoom in/out functionality, adjustable panel size, 3D or 2D timeline layout and spacing options that can be switched with one click.
• Sync with other apps (0.5 p): Integration with YouTube and Vimeo.
• Browser/OS compatibility (0.75 p): Mainly a cloud-based software, it is also available as a desktop app for Mac and Windows (only for Chromebooks); however, since Google has announced its intention to close down the Chrome app environment for Windows, TikiToki developers no longer guarantee if the software continues to work on Windows devices.
• Customization options (1 p): Color and category-based customization options, customizable time spans, collaboration and group edit functionalities, as well as the ability to include multimedia (images, videos and audio)
• Price (0.5 p): Users can choose between 2 types of accounts: the Free account (limited to only 1 timeline) and the Premium account (prices ranging from $7.50 to $25/month depending on scale)
• State of development (1 p): Regular updates and improvements brought to the software, with a history of the past and upcoming features available here.

Final rating: 5.75/7

3. Sutori

General description: An online timeline maker software that is mainly targeted at teachers and students, but also a reliable tool for business needs.

• Type of visuals produced (1 p): Collaborative timeline presentations that include texts, graphics, video and audio materials from multiple sources; the visuals can be accessed and edited by other users (account and invitation to view required), shared via email, social media, or as a link or embeddable code.
• Interface (1 p): Applies social media patterns to enable users to produce engaging content, either from scratch or from ready-made templates.
• Sync with other apps (1 p): It integrates with a wide range of learning management systems like Canvas, Blackboard, Instructor, Moodle, and it lets users embed resources from all the Google Suite, PDF files, and links for any website.
• Browser/OS compatibility (0.5 p): Sutori works on Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge browsers.
• Customization options (1 p): Includes interaction, annotation and collaboration tools, as well as a quiz feature for performance assessment; it also allows progress tracking and live feedback.
• Price (0.3 p): For teachers - available with free and paid accounts ($99/year/user), with the latter unlocking access to a wider gallery of templates and plans, unlimited number of timelines, saving and printing offline features and more. A license for 6 educators reaches 500/year, whereas a school-wide license with LTI integration costs $2000/year. For business users, there is also a free plan available, whereas the starting price for a Pro plan is $399/year (costs established depending on the level of added customization requested by customer).
• State of development (0.75 p): A steady pace of development, with updates on new features and enhancements published on the website’s blog page.

Final rating: 5.55/7

4. Preceden

General description: An easy-to-use web timeline creator that helps users create visuals for business, educational and non-profit audiences.

• Type of visuals produced (1 p): Timelines and project roadmaps that can be shared and exported in multiple formats (downloaded as spreadsheet, printable PDFs or images, and shared through its URL or as embeddable code).
• Interface (1 p): User-friendly interface which ensures seamless visualization of milestones, dates and deadlines, with templates for biographies, corporate planning visuals and history graphics.
• Sync with other apps (0.25 p): Microsoft Excel
• Browser/OS compatibility (1 p): As a web-based tool, it is compatible with any type of browser.
• Customization options (0.75 p): event group function (similar to swimlanes), timeline appearance customization options (colors, shapes, external resource attachment feature).
• Price (0.5 p): Provides free and paid licensing options, with the former limited to the creation of a single timeline with 10 items tops, and the latter with unlimited timelines, data import flexibility and other extras at a price ranging from $29 to $179/year based on type and number of timelines.
• State of development (1 p): Monthly updates announced via a Monthly Release Notes Newsletter. As a Preceden user, you can subscribe to the newsletter by following the steps described here.

Final ranking: 5.5/7

5. Timeline Maker Pro

General description: A desktop timeline maker that can cater to a variety of users, including investigators, researchers and planners.

• Type of visuals produced (1 p): Timelines that can be copy-pasted into documents, exported into .jpeg, .png or .bmp images, .ppt, PDF and HTML formats.
• Interface (0.75 p): Easy-to-use interface, offering embedded themes and a wide range of styles for data visualization, as well as a built-in presentation mode which lets users to instantly share charts (read-only format) with collaborators or colleagues (however, creating an account is required)
• Sync with other apps (1 p): It has an Import Wizard for any CSV, TXT, MS Project files and a copy/paste feature for MS Excel.
• Browser/OS compatibility (0.3 p): Compatible with Windows OS (XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10).
• Customization options (0.75 p): Category colors, custom fields and adjustable event labels for enhanced visual differentiation; it allows the addition of annotations, comments, and feedback to support the chart data (linking to external sources, multimedia files or websites).
• Price (0.75 p): No free plan available (only a 14-day free trial); the paid version is available as a ‘lifetime’ license with prices ranging from $49 up to $535 per user.
• State of development (0.5 p): A regular but slow enhancement pace; release history for the software can be accessed here.

Final rating: 5.05/7

6. Timeline 3D

General description: Desktop/mobile device timeline software that allows Mac and iOS users to build 3D animated timelines.

• Type of visuals produced (1 p): Interactive 3D timeline charts of business deadlines, world history, family trees and other types of data, with optimized display on retina screens. The resulted visual can be exported into 2D and 3D formats, as a web page and uploaded on a server, downloaded as a Keynote or PowerPoint slideshow or as a printable PDF file.
• Interface (1 p): Coded to use the latest Apple frameworks for enhanced performance and stability, the software’s interface supports complex timelines with 3D perspective and employs auto-layout intelligence and a context rendering engine; it also offers a drag & drop functionality to add media, arrow keys or Bluetooth remote shortcuts to fly over the timeline, the M key shortcut to zoom into attached media, search and filter functions to find certain details of one’s presentation.
• Sync with other apps (0.3 p): Keynote, import function from iCloud Drive and other sources.
• Browser/OS compatibility (0.5 p): available for Mac OS X and for iOS. It can be downloaded and installed through Apple’s App Stores.
• Customization options (0.75 p): Offers an advanced date parsing logic, event categories for color-coding of events; it accommodates HD video content, with enhanced render quality of animations, lighting and other effects, along with output resolutions up to 4K; separate themes for screen display and printing,
• Price (0.3 p): Free of charge when a series of Mac and iOS apps are purchased (depending on the type of format in which you want to present your timeline, you might require more expensive apps)
• State of development (1 p): Regular and important feature updates that are listed here.

Final rating: 4.85/7

7. Aeon Timeline 2

General description: Desktop timeline creation tool that’s a good fit for creative, instructional and course authors, legal practitioners and project managers.

• Type of visuals produced (0.75 p): Timelines that can be exported to CSV files, .jpeg or .png images, PDF file (for Mac users only) or into an interactive, read-only web format.
• Interface (1 p): Easy navigation with zoom in/out, scroll up/down and search functions.
• Sync with other apps (0.25 p): Integrates with Scrivener.
• Browser/OS compatibility (0.7 p): Works as a desktop tool both on Mac and Windows operating systems, and as a mobile app for iOS.
• Customization options (1 p): Flexibility ensured with various display options, predefined and customizable templates; controls that help highlight and group activities (e.g. bookmarks, collapse lanes, nest event and filter features, dependencies, assignation function between employee/resource and events).
• Price (0.5 p): The software offers a fully-functional 20-day trial, and the paid version is available at $50/year per license. Volume discounts apply for bulk purchases, and a 15% discount for students and educators. The version for iOS requires separate purchase from the desktop version.
• State of development (0.5 p): Regular updates that arrive earlier for the versions downloaded directly from the site (as opposed to the iOS version, for which updates come via App Store). Users that want to revert to older versions can find links to previous releases here.

Final rating: 4.7/7

8. TimelineJS

General description: An open-source timeline maker designed by the Northwestern University Knight Lab that allows the creation of rich timelines from a Google Spreadsheet.

• Type of visuals produced (0.3 p): Interactive timelines which can be customized and shared as URL or embedded as HTML code on one’s webpage. However, once published, the visuals created from a Google Spreadsheet are public to anyone who comes across it.
• Interface (1 p): Quite straightforward layout, with clear instructions on how to get started.
• Sync with other apps (0.5 p): Supports media from diverse resources like YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo, Google Maps, Wikipedia, SoundCloud, Vine and others.
• Browser/OS compatibility (0.75 p): Designed and tested primarily for Google Chrome, the software is effectively with any other browsers (except Internet Explorer versions before IE10).
• Customization options (0.5 p): A pretty standardized look for the final output, but it does allow the attachment of external media to enliven the visual a bit. More complex structures can be built by tech-savvy users mastering JSON skills. Creating timelines with ancient dates is also a possible.
• Price (1 p): Free
• State of development (0 p): Irregular, no release history available.

Final rating: 4.05/7

9. Timetoast

General description: A web-based timeline that lets users to design and build their own interactive timelines directly from their browsers upon registration.

• Type of visuals produced (0.5 p): Historical timelines, product launch roadmaps or other types of chronologies, which can be downloaded as .jpeg or .png images or as GIFs.
• Interface (0.5 p): Graphical interface with no drag & drop functionality, but which supports showing images on the timeline; visuals can be viewed in both horizontal and list modes; users can start building timelines from templates grouped in categories (BCE/BC date timeline creation is possible).
• Sync with other apps (0.3 p): Allows data import from various sources, but no integration with other apps.
• Browser/OS compatibility (0.75 p): Works with any type of browser.
• Customization options (0.2 p): Timeline color customization options to match the color scheme of the site into which the visual is to be embedded (only for Pro Plan subscribers).
• Price (0.5 p): Comes with a public free single-user plan, and two paid packages ($71.88/year for 5 users and $107.88year for 35 users).
• State of development (0.2 p): Slow enhancement, minor improvements (release history available on the official website’s blog page: https://blog.timetoast.com/)

Final rating: 2.95/7

10. ReadWriteThink

General description: Free web-based timeline generator that allows simple sequential visualizations of events or processes.

• Type of visuals produced (0.5 p): Horizontal timelines which support image display associated with time labels.
• Interface (0.75 p): Easy-to-use drag & drop and item re-arrangement functionality; it allows saving incomplete work; visuals can be shared via e-mail.
• Sync with other apps (0 p): -
• Browser/OS compatibility (0.75 p): Works on any browser with Adobe Flash Player enabled.
• Customization options (0.1 p): Flexible structuring by time of day, date, or event; labels with short or long descriptions.
• Price (1 p): Free
• State of development (0 p): No release history available.

Final rating: 2.85/7

Conclusion

Deciding which timeline maker is the best fit for you is ultimately dependent on your needs. Although our research is not exhaustive, it should give some direction on what to focus, based on these 7 criteria listed above.

The Best Timeline Maker Overview

Roadmap software is frequently used to plan the upcoming work on a project, helping project managers and their teams balance workload, coordinate and prioritize activities, and track progress in a transparent way. Despite the variety of roadmap apps in the market, choosing the best one for your team can be time-consuming as you’ll need to review all their various features and see if they suit specific needs or integrate with any other project management tools you may be already using. To help you with the selection process, we’ve picked out 10 of the best roadmap tools in 2019 based on user ratings. The candidates are:

1. Roadmunk

Average rating (GetApp, TrustRadius, G2 Crowd, Capterra): 4.63/5

Offering schedule visualization tools, project templates (called “roadmaps”) and team collaboration functionalities, Roadmunk is a cloud-based project management software suitable for all industries and businesses of all sizes. With a user-friendly interface, the product is easy to implement in an existing environment and allows you to:

• Rank tasks based on priority
• Attach files to specific tasks
• Create a roadmap starting from one of the pre-built designs available or by uploading CSV files or Jira data
• Customize and configure the roadmap to suit a particular project
• Export the roadmap in several popular formats and share them with colleagues
• Assign one of three permission levels to team members (if you’re the administrator)
• Try it out through a free trial (the paid subscription is on a monthly basis, with prices ranging from $19 to $99+ based on the plan you choose).

2. Aha! Software

Average rating (Software Advice, GetApp, G2 Crowd, Capterra): 4.54/5

Aha! is a cloud-based project management solution that allows users to create customized product, manufacturing, marketing, technology and consulting roadmaps, thus catering to a wide range of industries. Including Kanban boards, task lists, analytics and collaboration as primary features, the software supports agile and scrum workflows and integrates with applications such as Jira, Zendesk, Slack, Dropbox, Visual Studio, Trello and others.

The free trial option is available, supported by demos, a getting-started guide and knowledge base.

3. Product Plan

Average rating (Software Advice, GetApp, G2 Crowd, Capterra): 4.5/5

Managers who prefer to use visual overviews of their project to communicate plans for future work to teams of all sizes can find a reliable resource in ProductPlan. A cloud-based visual roadmap platform, it allows the easy and quick creation of roadmaps that can be customized with timeframes, tags, legends and filters, shared with viewers and exported as PDF, image or spreadsheet. Tracking any change or update made to the roadmap, the software integrates with major project management tools such as Jira, Slack, and Pivotal Tracker, helping you to avoid double work.

It comes in both free and paid versions (three plans – Business = $39/mo/user, Enterprise = $69/mo/user, and Enterprise Plus = $99/mo/user), the payment being billed annually.

4. ProWorkflow

Average rating (GetApp, TrustPilot, G2Crowd, Capterra): 4.46/5

A cloud-based project management tool suitable for individual use and teams of 5 to 5000, ProWorkflow helps you easily track tasks, progress, resources and invoices through customizable features tailored to your business profile.

Users can choose from three plans: Solo ($10/month) – ideal for freelancers, Professional ($20/month/user), and Advanced ($30/month/user) – most suitable for large teams. Customers who pay 1 year in advance get a 10% discount.

5. Targetprocess

Average rating (Software Advice, G2 Crowd, Capterra): 4.44/5

Targetprocess is a cloud-based modular software that supports project management using a combination of Scrum, Kanban and the user’s preset work solution. Ensuring data visualization at every level of the organization, the tool allows users to prioritize incoming work with visual encoding cues, signal every change with live updates, and track progress and manage risks through alerts.

Targetprocess offers a 30-day free version, a free trial for their Company plan (which costs $20/mo/user) and an Enterprise package, with prices tailored to the customer’s needs.

6. Office Timeline

Average rating (GetApp, TrustPilot, G2 Crowd, Capterra): 4.42/5

An on-premise project scheduler that directly integrates into PowerPoint as an add-on, Office Timeline helps business professionals automatically turn their data into easy-to-follow timelines and Gantt charts. Offering pre-built, customizable templates and task tracking features such as Duration or Percent Complete, the add-in integrates with applications such as Wrike, Smartsheet and Microsoft Excel for importing and exporting data pointers.

The PowerPoint roadmap maker offers two plans, Free and Plus ($59/year). While the free version is fully-functional, the Plus edition’s users get access to more customization options and productivity features.

7. ProdPad

Average rating (GetApp, TrustRadius, G2 Crowd, Capterra): 4.18/5

Offering diverse project management functionalities (Kanban, roadmaps, collaboration, idea management), ProdPad is a flexible product that integrates with Jira, Slack, Trello and other major tools used for project management purposes. You get access to a different host of features and level of administrative rights depending on which of their three plans you select (Essential, Advanced and Performance).

Each of them comes with a free trial, whereas the paid versions cost $99/month (Essential), $299/month (Advanced) and $999/month (Performance).

8. Roadmap Planner

Average rating (TrustRadius, G2 Crowd, Capterra): 4.1/5

Roadmap Planner is a desktop/mobile tool that allows organizations from various business domains to create business development, marketing and product vision roadmaps. Access to different planning, visualization, management, and data exchange functionalities depends on the plan you choose (Basic or Pro).

In terms of pricing, the only free version is the one with basic features for a single user, the options that include more users and different features implying subscription payment ($4.00/month/user).

9. Wrike

Average rating (Software Advice, TrustPilot, G2 Crowd, Capterra): 4/5

Suitable for both enterprises and SMBs, Wrike is a cloud-based project management solution that comes with Gantt charts, workload view for resource management, custom dashboards and calendars. Structuring via folders, tasks and projects and auto-assignment based on task status is possible as well.

Depending on the number of users and features required, you can choose from a variety of plans: Free (limited to 5 users and basic features), Professional ($9.80/mo/user), Business ($24.80/mo/user), Marketers and Enterprise.

10. Craft

Average rating (Software Advice, TrustPilot, G2 Crowd, Capterra): 3.82/5

Designed for teams in companies of all sizes across various industries, Craft is a cloud-based software that allows project and product managers customize workflows, track time spent/progress in Scrum story points and add/update tasks and priority scores as needed. With features such as product road mapping, idea, task and release management, version control, and feedback collection, the tool helps efficiently plan product releases, milestones and initiatives within a project.

Users who try out the free 14-day trial and decide to buy can choose from three plans: Essential = $39/month/user, Pro = $89/month/user, and Enterprise = price established after sales consultation.

The phenomenon of putting off any type of task that needs to be completed by a certain deadline is called procrastination. A commonly cited "culprit" causing this type of behavior is laziness, leading to the judgmental opinion that procrastinators are somehow morally faulty, disorganized, weak-willed or unmotivated.

However, more and more studies come to refute this misconception, claiming that procrastination is neither shameful, nor a character flaw, but a result of various situational constraints. To bolster this statement, many specialists have pointed out that procrastination is especially manifested when the task in question is meaningful to its undertaker (who cares about performing it well).

Social psychologist and professor at Loyola University Chicago’s School of Continuing & Professional Studies Devon Price is one of the supporters of the idea that procrastination is not a consequence of laziness, but a functioning problem stemming from two major causes:

1. Anxiety about the final outcome not being good enough (perfectionism);
2. Confusion and doubts about how to initiate the task (executive functioning challenge).

In other words, procrastination has nothing to do with moral conduct or motivation, but mostly with fear of failure or the uncertainty about how to begin a complex undertaking. Procrastinators would often will themselves to work for hours, but end up paralyzed in front of a blank Word document, piling on the guilt and worsening their level of stress.

The key solution to such instances, Devon Price suggests, is to identify which of the two above is the source of obstruction and:

1. If anxiety is the impediment, you need to walk away from the task and engage in a relaxing activity. This should act like a restart button.
2. If you don’t know how to begin the task, you should divide the main activity into a series of specific subtasks and organize them on a timeline to better track progress. It creates a psychological shift in the way you perceive the challenge at hand (an overall massive project vs. smaller, separate activities that you can tackle one by one).

Applying this strategy becomes even easier when using external structuring tools, such as the intuitive PowerPoint add-in called Office Timeline, which helps you turn your to-do list, schedule or activity plan into a beautiful and clear timeline. You can kick-start the process with our slide here (which is free to copy and share), and can add more milestones and tasks to the graphic using the Plus version of the tool.

Download the Project Management Template for PowerPoint or choose any other free templates from our gallery.