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The cause and effect of procrastination
Procrastination and how it affects a college student
An essay on procrastination
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On Friday, my brother took four hours to do two pages of math because he procrastinated. I wanted to learn about procrastination because my brother procrastinates a lot, and it is a big problem. He drags small assignments out for hours, and says that he will do them the next day. I already knew a little bit about procrastination, but I wanted to know more. I knew that procrastination can sometimes be hard because if you need to work on a paper, you may need to stay up really late, or skip events that are important to you. I thought that procrastination may not be all bad though, it may help your brain think faster if you know you need to get something done by a deadline. However, when someone procrastinates, they might rush through a task, making mistakes or messing things up. I wanted to know about what procrastination does to mental health. I wondered if procrastination is harmful or helpful to living a balanced life, and if it is a problem that people need help solving. I also wanted to know how to stop procrastinating because I wanted to help my brother stop doing his homework either last minute, or dragging it out. Finally, I hoped to learn …show more content…
I learned that to overcome procrastination, push away feelings of resistance and remind yourself of the rewarding feeling of completing work. Be realistic and chunk your work out, it doesn't need to be done all at once. Find a partner to do work with who won't allow you to make excuses, and do your best not make excuses in the first place. Don't make a big deal out of small tasks, and be honest with yourself. Focus on what you will achieve by doing the work, and reward yourself for doing it. Block out certain amounts of time to do your work, and don’t make everything perfect. Finally, you have to forgive yourself. Don't beat yourself up over procrastinating, instead, move on and set a new
Procrastination has become such a bad habit for me. It is very hard to stop procrastinating everything once you have gotten into the habit of doing it. Once I had a term paper due for my religion class. It was to be ten pages long and we were told to spend a lot of time doing it. Being the procrastinator that I am, I waited to the very last minute to do it. I waited until the night before to do most of it. Needless to say, I was up very late that night. In this class there was always a part of the paper due on a certain date before the final paper was due. Having things due before the final paper is due keeps me on task and keeps me from procrastinating until the day before the paper is due. There was one paper which we had to get sources for a while before the paper was due and it forced me to keep up with the paper, rather than let it go to the last minute. This class has taught me that the earlier you start the more positive your final result will be.
Procrastination comes from the thought of an individual knowing that they can do the same job at a later time. Everyone has been guilty of procrastinating because it is a human fear that no one can escape. To procrastinate is to put off or defer until another time, in other words it may mean to delay (Marano). In Psychology Today, Hara Marano said “twenty percent of all humans identify themselves as chronic procrastinators” (“Marano”). Procrastination is a human behavior that every college student has experienced at some point in his or her educational paths. For some college students, procrastination is a minor issue, for other college students, procrastination is a way of life that results in stress and could possibly be easily be avoided. Why? Procrastination can be broken down into three categories: how someone is considered a procrastinator, characteristics of a procrastinator, and how to escape procrastination.
Setting a timer can also help because you get to work on it for a minute, then come back at it after 60 seconds. Breaking down tasks into smaller amounts will help you with having to overwhelm yourself with so much. Sometimes you can even help yourself by simply giving treats after a task or being able to know that you can use social media after getting done with the work/task. Also, telling yourself that no one is perfect can actually help with failure because you will think less of trying to be perfect. Then you will actually try to do your task because you won’t be afraid of failure. Since procrastinators tend to say that the tasks are boring you can have a twist, and try to play a game to see how many of the task you can get done in such amount of time. It’s a good method for those who say the task are boring and they lack motive. Stop thinking about other things and focus on what needs to be done. Keeping track of the assignments that are due, and knowing which ones you have to finish first, and working along the way to get all of them done. Timing yourself in an assignment will actually make you want to do it because you got a certain amount time to get things done. Motivating yourself for 5 minutes
There have been countless times in my life where I have struggled to stay focused on a task ahead of me. I always plan out my work time ahead in order for me to complete a task, but every time I find that I have to revise my plan every day closer to the deadline. The little work that I should have done each day turns into a tremendous amount of work before the due date. Occupying myself with other things that keep me entertained, only brings me a lot of distress at the end. As I continue to torture myself , this bad habit of mine continous to dwell inside of me. One could say that there may be many implied meanings to this concept, but nevertheless, this force that messes with me everyday is considered to be procrastination.
I am a procrastinator and I have been ever since I was a child, which I am sure many others have been as well. As a child, I would put off my work mainly because I did not want to do and wanted to occupy myself with something else, rather than to sit there and actually do the work. When this happened, of course, the work would either be done in the morning, at night, or it would not be done at all. In his article, “The 5 Most Common Reasons We Procrastinate,” written for Psychology Today, Shahram Heshmat (2016), “The lack of imposed direction that’s become common in the workplace might contribute to the increase in procrastination” (para. 4). This is something that was more prevalent in my freshmen year of high
What are some of the causes of procrastination? In my exploration I've discovered more than a few, but there are two that stick out as major contributors to procrastination: perfectionism and impulsivity.
Procrastination may be responsible for late assignments, cramming revision for tests and social anxiety, all of which can often result in a poorer performance than the person is actually capable of achieving (Lee 2005; Lay & Schouwenburg 1993). So what is the reason for procrastination? Well, there are many explanations. Some researchers see procrastination as a personality trait (Lay 1986).The interest of procrastination is usually revolved around students and academia. Research has shown the importance of understanding procrastination in an academic setting, for instance academic procrastination is experienced by approximately 80%-95% of college students (Ellis & Knaus 1977). Studies show that at least 50% of undergraduate students frequently procrastinate (Hedin 2012). And 65% of students want to stop procrastinating (Solomon & Rothblum 1984). Even though many researchers focus on the destructive impacts that procrastination can have on a person’s life, for some procrastination is not always a negative behaviour. Research shows that individuals who procrastinate try to justify their behaviour and fall back on phrases such as, “I do my best work under pressure”
One of the major reasons why I procrastinate, is that I never have the motivation to get up and start doing work. This may be because of lack of sleep or not eating healthy food but in general it is because I just don’t have enough energy. Thinking about all the work I have to do, makes me think that I am not ready yet to put myself through several hours of torture. Having a bad day will also lower down my motivation level and cause me to procrastinate so that I can just relax. Doing work, especially if it’s a course I don’t enjoy can make me feel stressed. I tend to put myself down whenever I think about the amount of work I have to do that seems unmanageable. Not having someone to motivate me such as my parents or girlfriend also plays an
Since I can remember, I’ve had things to do and I put them off until the last minute. Sometimes putting things off until the last minute works out. At least half the time, assignments that I do the night before earn passing grades. On the other hand, there are plenty of times when I’ve avoided doing an assignment or studying for a test and not only am I a nervous bundle of anxiety, but I also end up bombing the test or getting a bad grade on the assignment. When it comes to procrastination, I’ve always had one or two friends who I could commiserate with-other people, just like me, who wait until the last minute to take care of something and then suffer all of the negative consequences that come along with that behavior. We look at all
Napoleon Hill said procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday. A lot of people today will actually experience procrastination in their everyday life, and is not looked at as a problem until it interferes with peoples’ ability to work and if it creates psychological and physical discomfort. Students often procrastinate and most research is observing the college students likeliness to procrastinate. To look at only college students would be bias however since it affects everyone, almost every day. To find out why people procrastinate, looking at personality and motivation can be where the answer lies. One of the leading researchers in procrastination is Joseph Ferrari. He looks at the definition of procrastination, many reasons procrastinations occurs, and the personality types it occurs in.
Do you ever wonder why you choose not to do something until the last minute? Sure you have! It has happened to everyone. I mostly believe that there are negative attributes to procrastination, more so than good attributes. Traits of adjourning include how rewarding a task may seem, affecting how hard a person will work on it, and laziness. Some may see procrastination as healthy, such as active procrastination. Although good effects appear from procrastinating, stress is a larger effect. Stress causes a few illnesses. Procrastination is a bad thing that generally occurs in everyone when short-term benefits are the only outcome people see.
The definition of procrastination is: the action of delaying or postponing something. Tim Urban, who conducts a speech called Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator for TED in 2016, explains that every human is a procrastinator- some more than others. I agree with everything he says in his speech because I can connect with every piece of evidence he claims, mostly including that there is a “Panic Monster” that pops up in your brain when you are close to a deadline and haven’t gotten anything done, especially when it comes from why I’m always so stressed out about school. There are two different kinds of procrastination: deadline and non-deadline. (Urban, 2016) Everyone that I have ever met is a procrastinator
People all procrastinate at one time or another. Procrastination is the practice of delaying work on important tasks in favor of less challenging ones. Chronic procrastinating hinders productivity and affects our state of mind by creating anxiety and stress (Reichelt). As deadlines approach, one often feels frustration and guilt for not starting on a task earlier. We often assume that projects won't take as long to finish as they really will, which often results in a mad scramble to finish the project in the twenty-four hours before the projects deadline. One of the biggest factors contributing to procrastination is the misconception that we need to be inspired or in the mood to work on the task at hand (Reichelt). However, the reality is that if you wait for the “right time” you will most likely wait for an indefinite amount of time and the task will never get completed.
Procrastination can be a major problem in both your career and your personal life because procrastination is the thief of time. When you keep putting off things, they keep piling up and getting in your way of achieving other things. Then you have missed opportunities, frenzied work hours, feel stressed, guilt and resentment; you find you are being overwhelmed easily because there is just so much to do.
Most humans have habits, habits in which they do simply because if they do not do them they feel uncomfortable. Procrastination is one of those habits that not all, but most people suffer from. Procrastination means to put off key things to do less important things that could possibly wait. It has been proving that all most everyone procrastinates, but procrastination does not determine what type of person one is. Procrastination is like a virus or a bad cold that does not want to go away. If one does not stop the problem it will get bigger; therefore, if people do not control their procrastinating they will start to do it more. However, the worst time to procrastinate is in college. College students often forget hoe important time is. Being a procrastinator can lead to several different outcomes. Procrastination can led to either good or bad outcomes. It all depends on the person doing the procrastinating. Procrastination is not always meant to happen; sometimes it simply happens because a person is too busy. Procrastination has both good and bad causes and effects, can cause failure, and bad decisions.