By: Aarav M. '31 & Meredith Y. '30
I started this article……..Then I started it again….then, finally, four days before this article was due, I then started it. Everybody has been there once. You have an assignment due; your teacher is breathing down your neck. You get home and then decide that it's the perfect time to binge your favorite Netflix show, or endlessly scroll through YouTube Shorts. This is the art of ✨procrastination✨. As Oxford Languages describes it, procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something. The art of procrastination has been deeply ingrained in our brains for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. When a task feels unpleasant or overwhelming, your brain starts to treat it like danger. Instead of facing the threat, you avoid it; it's basically emotional self-defense disguised as laziness.
Another reason for procrastination is the longing for dopamine. Dopamine is the craving to do pleasurable things, which is why you might scroll through YouTube. The last reason is perfectionism- You might procrastinate because you are scared to mess up. If you never start, you can’t fail.
Some of you might see your friends balancing video games and school like it’s nothing, and you wish you had that ability too. For your own sanity, here are a few actually useful tips straight from your peers. One anonymous student said that listening to music when studying is helpful because “it calms me down, as listening to music makes me happy.” When this student has trouble prioritizing her homework, she says that she puts her tasks “ into the ‘random spinner website’ and I discover the preference I secretly have.” As student Eric Tong ‘31 says, you can “plan tasks by which one is most urgent and important.” The last tip, by the 6th Grade Academic Dean, Mr. Beckwith, is keeping a “ to-do list,” as he is “always working on something on the list, and just doing the ones I want to do later.”
Overall, procrastinating is definitely not the answer. Take these useful tips and tricks and put them to the test, especially as you prepare for your Midterm Exams!