How To: Procrastinate

You do not. Under any circumstance, procrastinate.
It will hurt you.

And that is exactly what I am doing right now. Writing this article a week before the deadline but hey, there have been worse cases, am I right? Staying up till 1:00am or later writing a paper that was assigned weeks ago. We all know the the feeling, struggling to complete work for all of your AP classes, writing intense essays every week - that were no doubt assigned earlier- , completing worksheets for math and physics, while there's a huge research assignment hanging over your head that you STILL haven't got to. 

The question is, why do we procrastinate? Over the past twenty years, procrastination has sparked empirical interest. Psychologists now believe that there is far more to it than simply putting something off till tomorrow, the day after, or the week after... There are so many components that go into understanding procrastination, but here are some of the basic problems behind it: strict parents, parents who aren't strict enough, perfectionism, the fear of failure, and a lack of interest or motivation.

"Sometimes I listen to "Work" by Rihanna, but that doesn't help"

Let's start with strict parents. Psychology Today says that procrastination is our passive aggressive way of rebelling against the authoritarian figures in our lives, who could be strict parents, teachers, or anyone else that has influence over us. Sometimes harsh and controlling parents may keep children from developing the ability to manage themselves, from understanding their own intensions and acting on them. This may also be a tie with perfectionism, which underlies the fear of failure. Standards and expectations created by family members may be so high, or so unwanted and different from your own, that you either can't or don't want to live up to it. So procrastination steps in to stall you from working and failing yourself and others around you. A good way to deal with this is to focus on yourself, overcome the aggression and the barriers and power through.

"I always say I will do it later, but later was yesterday and here I am."

Business Insider believes that the fear of failure could be one of the reasons of procrastination. The fear of failure could be so crushing that you may feel that you can't accomplish anything, which is what one of last years graduates admits to feeling. Logically, if you were thinking about failing and were so worried about it, you would give yourself an ample amount of time to work, but it doesn't always end up that way. However, this logic does not work with everyone. Similar to the graduate mentioned, a high-schooler we interviewed is feeling paralyzed, they said that instead of studying they tend to sit at their desk and pity themselves. The student knows they are expecting a lecture at home, if they bring back a report card with a poor grade point average (GPA) or multiple B's in a row, but this 'fear of failure' is not helping them work better. Instead, the fear inspired bad habits to form like sleeping with headphones, the ability to zone out of reality, and a poor sense of self control. A teacher who briefly commented on the topic said that their parents did not care much about her performance at school. The lack of involvement and occasional lecture or even a "good job" on an assignment left her feeling like none of it mattered; in this case the fear of failure disappears, as there is no fear at all.

Next up, is a lack of interest and motivation which at times go hand in hand. A lack of interest can be a strong force behind procrastination. You may not feel motivated to work on a particular unit in math because of your lack of interest in it, put it off and off for days and end up working poorly on it. The Feeling Good Handbook by David Burns says that starting a task is the real problem, and the motivation comes along later. So by just taking the first step, opening the textbook and your notebook, is all you need to finish your assignment.

Procrastination is not good for your health. Putting things off creates higher levels of stress, and that stress will wear you out faster. It weakens your immune system and by keeping you up at night, it may affect your emotions, which in turn affect your friendships. The tips that are offered dealing with procrastination include, turning off all distractions - music, the TV, your phone... - and using the internet-free time to focus your attention on your work. Make a list of everything that has to be done, and start with baby steps, breaking down the big projects you need to work on and doing them piece by piece. Don't aim to finish an entire paper in one sitting; write the introduction or a couple of body paragraphs first instead. Also try promising yourself a reward for finishing something, a chocolate bar could do the trick.

We all have different personalities, not all of the causes of procrastination may be one hundred percent relevant to us and lists like "10 Ways To Stop Procrastinating", that are found scattered all over the internet, will not help all of us; but procrastination is something that grows on us over time, and it is something that can definitely be defeated, whether it's in 10 ways or more.

Thank you for making it to the end of the article, now you may want to finish whatever you had to do.

By Annemarie

the names of the interviewees in the article have been omitted