In a way, it can be very simple. You can influence anybody. You just need to know or find out how. And you need to be willing to influence. One of the key ideas is: Behavior that gets reinforced will be repeated. It can be praise, it can be other rewards (be creative and find all the levers). The target brain makes the rules. Men are not hairy women and vice versa. Right now, the decision to postpone gets reinforced for some reason worthy of discovery. Changing it is unattractive for some reason. And you can think of that as unfair and he/she doesn't do their part and you can take it personally or you can actively be smart and cunning. People can be trained just like dogs. I don't mean that in a condescending way. The brains are pretty similar. And just like dogs, the wrong training gets negative results. That's what nagging is for. Until doing what you want is a: the path of least resistance and b: a negative experience. Nagging is autopiloting towards the brick wall. It's the school and parents approach of utter incompetence. Throwing the piano out of the window screaming may get the point across in rare cases, nagging usually doesn't. Because nagging doesn't condition the brain to perceive the procrastination as bad, it conditions the brain to say: that wo/man is no fun. Be smarter. Same goes for the male approach of controlling everything. No fun. Be smarter. Another goal is to make them own their decision. It's OKish to get them to do what you want, it's much better when they themselves decide that it's the right thing to do. So, what, at the core, is it that makes postponing rewarding and attractive? And what could make it rewarding to do stuff ahead of time? Some people love riddles, some people love challenges, some people can learn to love either, some people just don't like to do boring stuff, so it's time to make it interesting. Every person has long levers and it's good to find them and to strategically use them for mutual benefit. So, get creative and find out how your helpless victim reacts to certain things you do, say, wear, change. How can chores lose the boring character if that's a factor (for me it would be that, everything but dull). What would be reinforcers on their terms, not yours? If you make it appealing on their terms, they will like to do it more. Or as Stephen said it: seek first to understand, then to be understood. It's not about turning the other into another you, it's about aligning their needs with your needs. Also, take 5 minutes a day and practice in your mind the behavior you want to show when they test you. Do not react. Act. See them do it in your mind and see and feel yourself reacting smart and strategically and proactively and feel proud about it because you were a leader, not a bully or a victim.. Train to not file their behavior under 'personal attack'. Because when you feel it attacks you or your values, you become reactive and then the autopilot looms. And then instead of reinforcing the wanted behavior you retreat to what school and parents taught us. Partners shape each other all day long. It's just usually clumsy and unconsciously and often negatively longterm. So if you influence anyway, you can just as well train to do it consciously and strategically and intelligently. And neatly avoid the brickwall in the process.