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Negative effects of procrastination
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Effects of procrastination on college students
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Procrastination is a problem that everyone will eventually end up doing at some point in their lives. There have been many debates over the topic where one side says that procrastination is a natural part to a human while the other argues that it is more of an acquired trait. In a 2016 TED talk given by Tim Urban, titled “Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator,” he claims that everyone is born as a procrastinator due to the fact that everyone tends to procrastinate at some point in their lives, thus it does not just affect those in school, in jobs or a specific group of people. My own view is that humans are to be procrastinators, naturally. In this case, what I mean by naturally is that humans are already born to procrastinate, everyone …show more content…
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 …show more content…
When that time would come by to ask for help for the work, I would never actually do it and the work would never be done. I would have a sense of dread when this would happen but, ultimately, it would seem like I didn’t have that “Panic Monster” that Urban had mentioned in his talk. It would seem like it was dormant for most of the time during freshman year. Heshmat (2016) also mentioned, “The most significant predictor of procrastination is a task that’s considered unpleasant, boring, or uninteresting” (para. 5). With this point, it shows that procrastination isn’t necessarily something we have learned to do, rather that we do it because when there is something that we do not want to do, it is only natural to leave it alone until there is something that pushes us to actually do
We all know the feeling of writing an essay or doing your homework, but don’t know how to start or what to do. So we decide to take a short 10 minute break. Later those 10 minutes turn to 20, then to a half hour, and then to an hour. This continues until the very last minute as we struggling to finish on time. This is procrastination. Procrastination is a very prevalent issue among students that we don’t take seriously enough. It can lead to more stress, bad grades, etc. Procrastination can slowly sabotage people’s lives. While procrastination is caused by everyday challenges, there are many solutions to it.
In the book The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play by Neil Fiore, PH.D the author explains that procrastination is often confused with laziness and frowned upon, although procrastination is actually a coping mechanism we use to deal with the stress and anxiety associated with starting and completing task. In the text the author explains that procrastination is all rooted from inner fears such as: the fear of failure, the fear of being overwhelmed, the fear of being imperfect, the fear of success, and the fear of increased demands. Dr. Fiore gives the tools to identify when you are procrastinating and also to effectively be more productive while minimizing stress.
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.
Let's start with perfectionism. Does perfectionism cause procrastination? Certainly it does... to varying degrees. It affects some people more than others. That, of course, directly leads to the problem with this theory: Not everyone is a perfectionist. Yet everyone procrastinates to some degree or another.
There are many reasons as to why people procrastinate. A lot of times, people procrastinate because they are wanting to do things perfectly. It is important to use accountability to move forward from procrastination. There are steps you can take that will help you achieve the success you desire in over-coming this unhealthy habit.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines procrastination as “to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done.” To understand procrastination, you must first discover why humans procrastinate even though it is the obvious wrong choice. Many scientists and researchers have studied and examined why one procrastinates, but I believe it is best explained by Alan Henry, a journalist for the online news network Life Hacker. In the article, Henry suggests that the cause for procrastination is not that students are just too lazy or bored to actually work on the task. He explains that our brains simply choose to do something more rewarding. Whether it is just a text to a friend or a funny short video clip, students still choose a distraction over working on their assigned paper, knowing this causes them stress, worry, and a worse grade in the end. This irresponsible behavior can be explained using the mental phenomenon referred to as temporal discounting. Temporal discounting, or time
However, as it does affect about one in five persons chronically, this issue that appears to be just a lazy habit has become rife. Although this issue, possibly caused by only one of the two theories, may possibly spawn from both hereditary and environmental reasons. Though there are a variety of “cures,” they are tedious and the issue of procrastination can be difficult to overcome. Procrastination is an issue overlooked by many, whereas this problematic mindset affects most of the population’s workplace and private relationships, as well as health.
Everyone procrastinates, it is in everyone’s nature. In Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator in February 2016, he talks about how humans procrastinate. Urban theory of the mind of a master procrastinator is extremely useful because it sheds light on the difficult problems of many people of youth procrastinate. The reason is because most of the tasks we need to do are not fun. We would rather postpone harder work than does it before the due date. Personal task doesn’t have due dates so postponing them is a force of habit.(urban2016)
There are different reasons to why people procrastinate. So, what are they? According to Dr. Codruta from the Department of Science of Education, a person’s tendency to procrastinate stems from the individual's “fear of failure.” Take my experience as an example. For our final project in my digital design class, we were assigned a real life client who was in need of a logo design for their business. It was an important task that put a lot of pressure on me, but I realize now that it was me who put that much pressure onto myself. My mind was filling with doubt during that time. What if the client hates it? I knew that if I did poorly on this project my grade would drop and I would also disappoint the client and that thought terrified me. I was given 3 weeks to submit my work and meet with client to show them the logo. But it wasn’t until the last two days of the deadline when I had just started designing. All that time that I didn’t
As we grow older it becomes difficult to change our routine because we are so set in our ways. But there are solutions and ways that can be practiced that will help ease the burden of procrastination. Some things that can help individuals cope with or even beat procrastination are mental rehearsal, proper time management, different study techniques, and ways to avoid distractions that could help an individual become successful (Gardner et al., 2014; Peper et al., 2014; Dietz et al., 2007; Zarrick et al.,
Procrastination is one of my biggest blind spots. But, the definition of procrastination is to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done. I usually do this when I already have a plan set out. For example, writing a paper for class. I already have how I want the paper to be structure, but I wait until the day before or the day of that it is due to write it, because that’s when I feel more
Individuals who procrastinate have the ability to generate significantly more creative content in comparison those who complete their work earlier. Adam Grant, in his TED Talk, describes himself as an individual who typically does the work long before the task is
Procrastination can have a variety of causes, whether it is peer pressure or a lack of self control, but it all stems from a single point of origin, a battle between two parts of your brain. The first contender is the limbic system. According to an article, “The Science Behind Procrastination” by Amy Spencer, she describes the limbic system as “one of the oldest and most dominant portions of the brain. It tells you to, say, pull your hand away from a flame—and also to flee from unpleasant tasks.” Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Carleton University sums this up by saying “[the limbic system] directs you to opt for immediate mood repair” Not surprisingly, those “unpleasant tasks” can include homework and projects. While useful when surviving in the wild, this instinct can impair your ability to work efficiently. The next contender is the prefrontal cortex, located right behind y...
"Chronic procrastination can have high costs: It has been associated with depression, guilt, low exam grades, anxiety, neuroticism, irrational thinking, cheating and low self-esteem. As a result, procrastination probably accounts for much of why many never realize their full potential and so it can be an extremely disabling psychological condition" (p. 55)
The world is filled with billions of people. Each one of them being unique in their own way none of them are the same. Although they are all different there is a unique characteristic that they all share or in other words have in commun. what is amazing about it is that they don 't even notice it. right now you might be thinking to yourself what exactly is that characteristic that makes us humans similar to one another in a way? Well you see no matter what race, culture ethnicity, skin color, or even the language you speak, we are all “procrastinators”. Yes including myself I am also a procrastinator and procrastination is on my everyday life which has a huge impact on it. Being a procrastinator however, it 's never a good thing and it can turn your life for the worts. Well that 's if you let it.