The Student’s Curse
After spending years confronting the peculiar peccadilloes of the
student set, I’ve learned that one problem, in particular, looms
above the rest. I’m talking, of course, about procrastination. For
many students, it’s the personification of academic troubles: “if I
could only stop procrastinating on my work, I would be doing
fine.”
My experience has revealed that there are two types of
procrastination. The first, which I’ll call light
procrastination, is the standard resistance to shutting
down e-mail or turning off the TV that we all feel.
The real monster, however, is what I call deep procrastination.
This is a state, reached by an alarming number of students, in
which the pressure of starting at the absolute last minute becomes
necessary to motivate any work. Students who suffer from deep
procrastination pull frequent all-nighters and are often found
begging for extensions on assignments they couldn’t bring
themselves to begin before the deadline. You can normally spot them
in the JC or the higher end of the Secondary Schools e.g. Secondary
4 or 5.
This is a serious problem, and I want to offer an unconventional
solution — born from experience — for eliminating its worse
effects.
The Roots of Deep Procrastination
The most common reason given for procrastination: work
sucks. You assume you delay because the chore itself is
brutal. But is this true?
Think back to the last assignment that you put off until the
minute. Now imagine during the upcoming fall semester you have no
courses to take. Your teachers says he believes in your talent and
that he wants you to complete this one assignment at your own
pace.
For most students, the work would be rather enjoyable. Be
it a research paper or a big chunk of reading or even the 'O'
levels Art coursework, there is something very satisfying
about mastering material over time. It makes you feel competent
(one of our three basic psychological needs), and most
people, when not under incredible pressure, actually enjoy learning
new things.
The reason, then, that some students suffer from deep
procrastination: their schedule as a whole is too
demanding. Put simply, there is too much work and not
enough time. Night after night they forced into a situation where
they have to work, probably late, and this sucks. After a
while a resentment grows toward their schoolwork — it is making
their life miserable. And once they resent the work — and
get none of the joys of competency and learning and mastery that
classes could provide — their mind starts doing whatever it can to
avoid getting started.
Curing Deep Procrastination
So what works? Stricter schedules and more intense productivity
rules won’t cut it. The problem is not
disorganization, it is, instead, a deep-seated antipathy
to student work in general. If you want to cure deep
procrastination you have to remove the source of resentment. And
this means doing less; much less.
Student’s who shift to schedules with much more free time find
themselves handling their workload without pain. Without the
pain, they don’t grow to resent their schedules. And without the
resentment, no deep procrastination will
arise.
This is somewhat unexpected, as making your schedule lighter makes
it easier to procrastinate in the sense that you can get away with
more last minute heroics. However, for most students, the opposite
occurs. The light schedule takes away their fatigue, and a true
interest in their work blossoms again. Guess what? When you’re
interested in your work, it’s not that hard to get
started…sometimes even real early.
Are You a Deep Procrastinator?
If your procrastination has gotten to the point where your grades
are starting to suffer, or you’re frequently working into the
twilight hours to make deadlines at the last minute, seriously
consider why this is happening, then ask yourself what you might
gain by rebuilding a happy relationship with your schoolwork.