Current Release: September 11th, 2007 | Vol. XXIV Iss. 10

Procrastination isn’t all it’s cracked up to be

By Lauren Paolino

lepaolino@vwc.edu

It happens every once in a while, the tearing through the syllabus, the frantic texting of people in my class to see what’s going on. Then there is the running to the library and the computer lab, oh yes the tapping of the keys, and random vibrations of cell phones that make you want to hurt someone. Then come the excuses “I have ADD” or “next time I swear I’m starting my paper a week early”.

Procrastination is what I’m talking about, and it’s something that needs to change. I don’t do this for every big paper, but sometimes I’ll see someone in the Grille who says, “Did you do your assignment for this class? Its due tomorrow.” And I feel the stress creeping into my stomach.

But sometimes my procrastination isn’t all laying around and watching TV. While I was employing the ever-so-useful Google.com, I came upon a website called structuredprocrastination.com, which says: that “Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get around to it.” So looking back on all the Sundays that I had a speech and a three-page paper due Monday, I noticed that I spent that day cleaning my car, room, kitchen and doing my laundry. While I just thought it was me being lazy, it was my way of putting off something I needed to do by doing something that could get done later.

I looked at more websites, such as CalPolys student academic services website http://sas.calpoly.edu/asc/ssl/procrastination.html. This website not only gave me study tips, but it provided characteristics of people who procrastinate. And I realized I fit the criteria almost perfectly. I get frustrated really easily and will give up before I make myself look stupid trying the assignment. That was another characteristic of procrastinators; they are afraid of people judging them. It’s like that feeling you get when you were working on a paper for what felt like forever, and you got a C, and you see everyone else, and they got A’s and B’s. Another point was that we’ll wait until we have huge chunks of time to do a paper, but in most cases this time isn’t available untill the weekend. And I know that I like my weekends to be quite lazy.

So what kind of tips do they give to change this? Well here are a few:

• Make the tasks look small and easy in your mind. (“I’ve written lots of excellent papers; this is just one more paper.”)

• Do only a small part of the task each time. (“I’ll just check out the books tonight. Later on, I’ll glance through them.”)

• Five-minute plan: Work on something for just five minutes. At the end of five minutes, switch to something else if you want. Chances are, you’ll get involved enough to keep going.

• Advertise your plans to accomplish something, and let peer pressure push you forward. (“I told everyone that I was going to finish this tonight.”)

• Use a good friend as a positive role model. If you have trouble concentrating, study in the presence of someone who doesn’t.

• Modify your environment-if you can’t study at home, find a place where you can study; or, change your study situation at home.

• Plan tomorrow and establish priorities-some students find that simply writing down reasonable starting and stopping times help them get going.

• Expect some backsliding.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I work better under pressure. But with these tips I can learn how to do a project little by little and stop putting myself down.

Hopefully.