One of my worst habits is my tendency to procrastinate. Most of the time I end up pushing off all of my work until the last possible minute. I always end up having work pile up if I don’t get my work done ahead of time. This leads to unnecessary stress and issues that are easily preventable. Why is it that I do something that I know will hurt me in the long run. This is a common problem that a surprising amount of people have. I decided to look into the issue of procrastination and my findings were a bit surprising.
One of the first things that jumped out at me was that it’s possible that twenty percent of the population are chronic procrastinators. Why is it that so many people just push everything off? According to an article I found, it is often heavily based on the persons’ personality. Thrill-seekers procrastinate to feel a euphoric rush of energy, while those who are avoiders procrastinate as they are afraid of either failure or success. Some end up procrastinating as they are indecisive. Regardless of the reason, any type of procrastination is detrimental.
Some people think that procrastinating helps them as they think that they work better under pressure, but studies have shown otherwise. In a study at Case Western Reserve, they asked their students to log their performance for the year. Students that procrastinated ended up with lower grades and reported more illness than those who did not procrastinate. No matter how you look at it, procrastination doesn’t do you any good. For these reasons, I really want to try and stop procrastinating. I feel that it would make everything so much better in terms of my mental health.
That case study is super interesting, since most students believe they actually work BETTER when they procrastinate... perception is different from reality.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting, because I procrastinate all the time. My problem is that when I try to do my homework at a reasonable time, I just tell myself I don't care about it. Then suddenly, the night before or the morning it's due, all of a sudden I'm freaking out because in reality I care about my homework and grades a lot. It's a weird cycle! The study you found was super interesting as well.
ReplyDeleteProcrastination is super stressful. I do it all the time and can't get out of the cycle. Why do I procrastinate? Probably because of all the reasons you stated in your blog. At one point in my life I tried to stop procrastinating. A trick I read up on was to set a seperate due date before the actual date it is due. This gives you a good chunk of time to revise everything instead of like an hour. Though, it didn't work for me it could work for you.
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