For my fourth post, I figured that I would write about something familiar, procrastination. This is something that many people deal with, especially as students. The article I linked down below is from the New York Times, and it describes how procrastination doesn’t necessarily mean an individual is lazy, rather it is about avoiding the response or judgment we fear in regards to our completed work. The article describes two different writers and their struggle with procrastination (one of the writers is Douglas Adams who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for which our blog is named).
People procrastinate for a couple of reasons, it could be a fear of judgment from others, or that we put too much pressure on ourselves to achieve. The recommendations in the article suggest that people choose productive work times, work with other productive individuals, and understand that others are supporting us. I personally procrastinate quite a bit, especially with school projects or assignments that I know will be graded or are worth a lot of points. Whenever the stakes are higher, I tend to procrastinate more, which is a habit I hope to improve on.
1. Do you procrastinate?
2. Do you agree with the article, or do you believe that sometimes we procrastinate because we are just lazy?
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5 comments:
In regards to the article, it states that at times we procrastinate due to putting off negative emotions. When tasks make us feel anxious, confusion or boredom, we go online on youtube to waste our time. However, I only agree with this statement to a certain extent; while this may be the case for multiple examples of procrastination, I think the major reason is because of the concept of 'instant gratification." When given a long term assignment(be it a week, month or even a year), we think that we have ample time and can do something more fun with our time. We overestimate our abilities to be able to complete the work in a shorter, high-stress amount of time, which only makes us feel worse in the end and produce poor quality work. Granted, some of us are fortunate enough to be able to work in these "self' created environments and turn in some top quality essays/projects. These types of people might argue that it is better to "work-smart" rather than "hard" and that high-pressure environments help them work better. (I think many of us can relate to this concept especially with our term paper.)
Honestly now with this whole school lockdown and home-quarantine lifestyle, I feel that it makes students more inclined to procrastinate. If you are more interested in learning about the psychology of procrastination - I recommend you watching this Ted Talk video as I believe it accurately encapsulates the exact definition of procrastination:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU
I do procrastinate… quite a bit. My parents make fun of me and say when I decide to sweep the house or clean my room that I’m procrastinating. I don’t think I see a pattern in the types of assignments I try to avoid by procrastinating. Personally, I probably am a little bit lazy. I think I procrastinate because I just don’t want to do anything. It’s nice to just sit and do nothing rather than actually do work. Senioritis has definitely affected my work ethic, which sucks, but I think even before senioritis I was still procrastinating. Now that we’re doing the “at-home learning” thing, I feel like I have been procrastinating more.
With regards to the first question, I do think that I suffer from procrastination. Like you mentioned, the bigger the project or assignment is, I find myself more inclined to push it till later. I’m not entirely sure that procrastinating in a couple of tasks immediately makes us lazy individuals. There are many times when I’m simply exhausted with work or studying, and I defer my homework till the following day (even though it is feasible for me to finish it that night). With that being said, I also believe that we can be lazy just for the sake of being lazy. Being in quarantine right now, I have plenty of time to start on my English & Econ research papers, yet I have continually pushed it back (in the name of laziness!). I think deadlines are a great way of removing procrastination (putting real consequences on not doing the work also helps). As for the article, I do agree somewhat with its contents. I do find myself pushing off things that I feel I’ll get judged for (I do think this may be a confidence issue, but that’s beside the point).
I absolutely procrastinate... even in Economics, Sorry Mr. Silton! I often find that I set up expectations in my head that assignments are too difficult for me or that they will take so much time that I don't even know where to get started. I, for the most part, agree with the article as my thoughts when procrastinating do seem to line up with the article's reasoning.
The way I combat procrastination is by dividing a big task into small bite size chunks. For example, on my agenda I write things like "Find two new sources for the gov paper" rather than just "work on the gov paper" because I find splitting the work up to be very effective in my mind. If I become engrossed in working, so be it, I can keep working because there isn't anything stopping me. Setting my mind up for success has been super useful for me when it comes to procrastination.
I, like many others who have already commented, also procrastinate a lot. I think that the Times article puts it quite well, as thinking back I can pin any assignment I have procrastinated on onto trying to avoid any negative emotion. Mostly boredom. I get really distracted by pretty much everything whenever I try to sit down and do school work, especially if it is reading a really heavy text. Whenever I try to read something complicated, whether it be a dense literary critique or a complex gov/econ concept, I find my mind drifting away, eventually leading to me just browsing reddit for an hour. And for me at least, I do think some of my procrastination does have to do with laziness. Whenever I see a task that I perceive as daunting, I tend to just put it off because I cannot bring myself to start on it.
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