Procrastination can be problematic. Procrastination is the action of delaying something. I know about this firsthand because I’ve said to myself for the last month, “Today I’m going to start writing my blog.” I never get around to it, either because I’m busy doing sports or just scrolling TikTok on my phone. It’s not just my blog that I procrastinate about, but basically everything I do that other people aren’t relying on. I have a social studies project that should be much more complete by now, but lo and behold, it’s untouched. Since I have been neglecting it, now I have many things to do on top of it, creating this wall of work that I need to chip away at. The procrastination is so bad in fact, that since typing that last paragraph, I’ve left and played video games for an hour and a half. I’m typing it in between rounds just to get some words in. Basically, procrastination can make things hard to get done. It’s not just procrastinating work though. Another form of procrastination is sleep procrastination. Sleep procrastination is when you delay getting into bed or delay falling asleep while in bed. This might happen because you feel that you haven’t done enough in a day or just don’t want to go to bed yet. I suffer from this the most. It stops me from getting the energy I need to make it through a single day, which causes me to put off even more work I need to get done because “I’m too tired.” My dad will be going to bed and will find me asleep with the lights on with papers on my desk, and he will just turn off the lights and go to bed. The worst part about procrastinating is that the longer you do it, the more anxiety builds up making you not want to do it more. By the time you actually get around to doing what you have been putting off, it’s a very stressful task to complete. Some things that I procrastinate on aren’t stress-inducing, like eating healthier. Still, the tiny voice in my head tells me that I could be doing better, doing more. The only way to not procrastinate indefinitely is if there is a deadline. That’s the whole reason why work eventually gets done. Things like going to the gym or going to bed earlier don’t have a deadline, however, and that’s why I can’t be bothered to better myself. To be a better person, I brainstormed solutions to fix my procrastination problem. Then I thought about how having a deadline helps me get things done. So, to get things done I’m going to create deadlines for everything I want to do. Get a better sleep? Deadline. Start having healthier snacks? Deadline. To keep track of all my deadlines, I used an app (IOS only) Event Countdown- Calendar app. Some of its features are locked behind a paywall, but all the basic stuff is free. I know that just getting stuff done won’t be enough for me, like just getting a good night's sleep, so I’m going to reward myself when I get things done. It might just be taking an hour's break to watch YouTube, or if something is bigger, it could be buying a game I want or watching a movie with a friend. Either way, I’ve procrastinated enough. It’s time to do something about it. Lucas D
10 Comments
What is procrastination? Procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something. Why would I write a blog about procrastination? Well it's simple I had all year to write this blog and here I am 5 days before I have to turn this in. Almost everyday for the past year I’ve had this blog on my mind asking myself “when do I want to work on this?” This might just be me, but It’s the worst having the same thing to worry about for months on end. It makes it even worse knowing that you're the reason why this thing isn’t getting done or that you're the reason why you're stressing so much about it. If I think about it, I’ve made it worse for myself just by delaying it. At the beginning of the year I said to myself I have 9 months until this is due so I can just wait till the last minute. That was the worst decision I’ve made this year. Everyday after I get back from school my brain has a reminder telling me to work on this blog, and who would’ve guessed ... I said “I’ll do it tomorrow” every time. This isn't the only thing I’ve procrastinated on and it definitely won’t be the last. I promise you everyone has procrastinated. No one has never not procrastinated. Have you ever been asked by your parents to clean your room and instead of doing it, you just said “I’ll do it later”. That right there is procrastination. Or have you ever been so tired lying in bed and you tell yourself “5 more minutes'' instead of getting up? That also is procrastination. I believe that there are two types of procrastination. This idea I actually got from a Ted Talk I saw about Procrastination by Tim Urban. It's a great Ted Talk and it’s funny at the same time while you learn about procrastination. Tim Urban explains that the two types of procrastination are the “Deadline Procrastination” and the “No Deadline Procrastination.” Now the deadline procrastination is a lot harder to deal with because it’s on your mind a lot and you know you need to do whatever it is you need to do. But you're always holding it off. But with the non-deadline procrastination, you don’t ever have that worry because there is no deadline so you always just keep holding it off forever and ever until there is one. Tim Urban explained the deadline procrastination like this. In our brain we have two things: “Rational Decision Maker” and the “Instant Gratification Monkey.” The Rational Decision Maker part of our brain always knows what needs to be done but whenever you decide to do whatever it is you need to do, the Instant Gratification Monkey takes over and says, “hey let's do this instead.” An easier way of understanding this is to imagine it like two sides: the Rational Decision Maker has a side called “whatever makes sense,” and the Instant Gratification Monkey has a side called “easy and fun.” Sometimes these two sides overlap and the two agree sort of like a Ying and Yang. But sometimes there's a conflict and the procrastinator just wants to do whatever is easy and fun and lets the monkey take over. Later when the deadline is closer, the procrastinator realizes it and all of a sudden the Panic Monster wakes up. Keep in mind the Panic Monster is always dormant until he has to wake up to yell at you “Hey the deadline is soon. You have to do something.” The monkey is also scared of the monster and runs away when he wakes up. Normally the Panic Monster and the Rational Decision Maker work together but sometimes usually when the Panic Monster takes over, you generally can’t seem to get any work done and usually just sit staring at a blank page. But the Rational Decision Maker will make sure the work gets done now that the monkey is gone. And once the work is gone, the Panic Monster goes back to sleep because there's nothing to panic about. For the non deadline procrastination there is no Panic Monster because there is no deadline to worry about. And generally you have the Instant Gratification Monkey that takes over for the most part but once he gets bored and goes off to do whatever he wants, the Rational Decision Maker will take over. However sometimes though, that might be too late and whatever you want to get done just goes away and you can’t do it anymore. That’s not a deadline, it's just forgetting about the thing you want done, or it’s just not important anymore and doesn’t need to be done.
Now I never thought of procrastination like this until I saw that Ted Talk. It actually really helped me open my eyes to different things. I now know that whenever I’m about to procrastinate or that I am procrastinating, I’ll remember the Ted Talk or even this blog. And instead of waiting to do something and making it worse for myself, next time I’ll get it done sooner. I’m not the only one who should be doing this though. I hope that this blog helped you get a better understanding of procrastination as much as It did for me. Just know that the next time you get a deadline for something, it’ll be best to do it sooner rather than later. Austin M Tim Urban's Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator Procrastination. That is something everyone deals with on a daily basis. For some people procrastinating is a very big wall for them to get over then others. It can become very serious because it can stop you from doing your everyday things. Most teens struggle with it when it comes to doing school work and handing it in, talking to teachers or other daily events. It normally starts when you to push things aside that should be done, for example me doing this blog I was procrastinating about, but here I am writing about it. I think a lot of people can relate to procrastinating since everyone has done it some time in there life, if not everyday. The main cause of procrastination is excessive perfectionism, you encourage yourself to do what you want to do, but keep putting it off until you think you can do it perfectly. Main causes of students procrastinating: • Lack of motivation • Low self confidence • Lack of understanding • Fear of failure • Perfectionism • Low energy levels • Poor organization skills Studies have shown that 1 in 5 people are procrastinators. Also 20 percent of US adults are chronic procrastinators, meaning they just don’t procrastinate occasionally, its a huge part of there life. Although the American Psychological Association did a survey and it showed that 80 to 95 percent of students procrastinate over there schoolwork. It is a universal human trait and people who do it a lot are being told they are lazy or worthless, which causes their self confidence to go down. Again thats why the main reason is people wanting it to be perfect so they keep putting it off, if there confidence is down. Anxiety can be apart of procrastination, it is normally a common symptom. Anxiety can be overcome with steps, so that means procrastination can be too. Here are some steps on helping with procrastination; 1 - Recognize your procrastinating. 2 - Work out why you are procrastinating. 3 - Start making anti procrastination strategies. - you could get someone to check up on you or make a reward. 4 - Start making a list and following it every day, even start writing long term goals and those steps too, to achieve them. There are four types of procrastinators; • Anxious procrastinator • Fun procrastinator • “Plenty of time” procrastinator • Perfectionist procrastinator I struggle with procrastinating a lot for doing tasks everyday and school work on the daily. The best way to help me overcome it sometimes is writing a list and following it everyday from most to least important. Natalie D I have not touched my planification online course since before Christmas break and it is now the end of April. Just think of all that wasted time. I probably could have done that course twice in that time. I even have a study block to use. Time we take for granted and do not often appreciate, until it's gone. Or there is wasted time well wasted, like relaxing. If you think about it “relaxing” is wasting time, because there is not a very large outcome of this time and you could probably do something more productful. Even though everyone loves to have time to relax and do nothing. When I go home and sit on the couch after school my mother often says that I am wasting time and should go do school work or go for a run etc. I see this time as a time to relax and not do work when my mother sees it as time that could be used differently and maybe even productively. So, ‘‘wasting time’’ is a little different for everyone because we see time well spent differently. Say one person was looking up the states of some professional sportsperson, for this person they are learning and this is probably not considered waste time for them but to someone who doesn't care about that sport might see that research as wasted time. We often waste time because we are trying to put off doing something or get caught up doing something that really doesn't matter. Im sure if everyone valued school/work above most other things and we did not waste time with friends and playing sports and social mediaing we could all have amazing grades/be successful. But that sounds really boring and unpleasant so I might just keep enjoying my wasted time and enjoying what I enjoy. Wait… so is wasting time good‽‽ Hear is an amazingly worded blog on the psychological importance of wasting time. (fun fact- ‽←- this is an interobang and is great cuz it's basically a question mark and an exclamation mark! Use it well!) You now know two side to wasting time, the bad-because well you probably already have it drilled in your mind that wasting time is bad and now because you just looked at that link up there in the last paragraph….. you know the positive side.
I'm assuming you have always had people yelling at you and annoying you to stop wasting time and to actually do something useful for yourself or others. That's why we see wasting time as negative thing. But also cuz the word ‘‘waste’’ is pretty negative. When wasting time stop and think, are you wasting time, or is there actually value in what you are doing? Is talking with a friend a waste of time or are you investing in the relationship. I believe it depends on you perspective and what other stuff you might should have probably be doing. So waste your time wisely. Matthew F Being unmotivated can stop you from doing a lot of things. It's hard to find the motivation to get your homework done eat healthy work out or pretty much anything. It took me forever just to open up my computer and work on this. There is so many things i would like to do however i feel unmotivated and like i have not enough time or simply do not feel like it. There are multiple ways to feel motivated such as set a goal, plan days in advance or get someone to help. This website has 16 ways to help you feel more motivated. https://zenhabits.net/get-off-your-butt-16-ways-to-get-motivated-when-youre-in-a-slump/ It can take a while to stop feeling unmotivated weeks days months or even years. There's many ways to try and become motivated. Personally i feel like making goals help a lot. When you reach your goal you feel accomplished like you have done something. Even just getting a simple assignment done for school can make you feel like you did that. Until you find out your grade it can either make you or break you. Whenever i get a bad grade i just stop caring. Even creating simple things to start get you motivated to help. If you want to start sleeping earlier start off gradually and build up to it. Try and find that person who will believe in you to do what your trying to get motivation for. If you don't have a person to help you try adding prize to your own goal. Most importantly believe in yourself. https://jamesclear.com/how-to-get-motivated Zoe L.
Procrastination is that we are busy with some irrelevant things and evade what we really should do. It is like I know that I need to send this blog to Mr. Hortness before Friday, and I start to write this blog on Thursday afternoon. There are lots of tests coming, and I know that, but I will review at the last day before test.https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/procrastination I believe that most people share the same experience with me: The homework you received in holiday , you always have written names on the first week of the holiday, but you will only begin to write it in the last week; at the beginning of the semester, they plan to study hard for the final exam. However, when you got to the last moment, he begin to read books; in the morning, you get up and see his toothpaste running out; you still had no toothpaste in the morning and had to put his head on the bridge to make sure that there was a road before the mountain. When we wait until the moment comes, we are soberly aware that we can no longer delay. In order to be able to complete the task, we will not hesitate to sacrifice the rest time, work overtime even if they are exhausted, we have to do it, and it is gratifying that the final situation can often be completed. From that moment onwards, we began to feel that delays did not seem to be impossible, because we had not yet reached the point where we could not be saved and we did not return to heaven. Even if we delay again, we will always be able to live steadily and steadily. No matter how hard the struggle was done, it was still the case. Before the exam, it was over and over. The things that must be done were exhausted and finally completed. We begin to have the illusion that we have enough ability to sprint at the last minute and then still reach the finish on time. We start bragging about showing off to others: “Although I drag things to the end, I don't finish it.” But in fact, I think carefully. Is it still our initial expectation that we will delay the final completion? Is it our intention to leave when we leave all the way? When we vowed at the starting point, do we think that the future is such a form of confession to be willing? In fact, we ourselves are very clear that we can do better if we do not delay. As we delay one step further, our feet will take a step back, and the bottom line of our own request will be lowered a little. The final destination will be farther away from perfection. We have procrastinated for a long time, but we cannot delay the length of our lives. In essence, we are still wasting our lives. You must know that your whole life is so long. Some things are not done right now. You may not be able to do it later. There will always be one day when we no longer have the ability to procrastinate. The time limit is approaching. The unfinished business is not completed. We can only blame the rest of our time for our laziness, blame our own fault, and accept the result with remorse. People who cannot change procrastination are ultimately small people, and great people are not only great people at the last minute.
The great people shoulder tremendous pressure and mission from the very beginning, and they always keep their minds in mind. Prepare for the future when others haven't realized it yet. Every minute is fighting and you don't stop to rest. In the end, they can still face calmly and smile. In fact, we do not need to find any excuse to hide our delay. The delay is not terrible. The fear is that the delay is not repentance. Occasionally tired to rest, but the beginning of the heart can not be forgotten, and their time spent wasted due to delay in another form of work, must not be wrong again, dragged on again. Haobo L “Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.” |
Categories
|