As I was entering my freshmen year and I was in the bridge program we do a few weeks before school starts my mindset has always been to do great in school and to never fall behind in my assignments. Little did I know that at the beginning of the most important year of high school I would fall into a deep situation of procrastination and lack of motivation to do things.
The dictionary definition of procrastination is “the action of delaying or postponing something,” but there’s more to it than just not wanting to do something so you end up leaving it for later. In case you didn't know, the latin roots of procrastinate are pro-, meaning "forward," and crastinus, "of tomorrow." An example of procrastination would be when a person delays working on an assignment until right before its deadline knowing that it would be better for them to have started it earlier. There is various different types of procrastination including the two most common which are when someone procrastinates because they are trying to avoid something that brings them anxiety, while the second type is when someone procrastinates because they are being distracted by social media or are just in fact being lazy.
Experts define procrastination as a self-defeating behavior that satisfies you with benefits that will last you a short period of time and long-term consequences. 20%-25% of adults fight against severe problems of procrastination. This issue can be linked to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, ADHD, and defective study habits.
Many people may ask what could possibly cause procrastination? Well it takes multiple aspects including the fear of failure, lack of motivation, and poor time management, all play a role in procrastination. In order to try to at least figure out why you procrastinate you could dive deeper into it and ask yourself some questions including; “Am i not doing it because i don't know how to do it?” or “Do I feel overwhelmed or anxious about the task that I need to complete?”
Procrastination can also affect highschool students in many ways, not just adults. Student procrastination happens a lot, it is basically when the students tend to unnecessarily postpone school tasks including doing homework or having to study. An example of student procrastination can be when that student is in need to do homework once they get home but instead they lay down on their bed and stare at their phone on social media while saying that their homework can wait and how they can do it later, but end up not doing it. Some examples on why students procrastinate include:
Feeling overwhelmed, often while being unsure of how to deal with the academic task in that precise moment.
Fear of Failure, often due to concerns over how failure might reflect on the student’s skills or how others may view them.
Anxiety, often in light of potential negative consequences.
Lack of motivation, often as a result of not caring about academic performance.
Problematic work environments, generally as a result of having distractions or temptations result in you not being able to put the 100% focus that you need in a task.
Works Cited
Lieberman, Charlotte. “Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do with Self-Control).” The New York Times, 25 Mar. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.html.
Marks, Julie. “Effects of Procrastination: Pros and Cons.” Psych Central, 25 July 2022, psychcentral.com/health/good-and-bad-things-about-procrastination.
My process with writing this essay was equally good and bad. I say this because one of the main reasons why I wanted to write about procrastination would be because of my own personal experiences with procrastination. While writing this essay I dealt with procrastination and not working on my assignment at home because I would always say to myself that I could finish it tomorrow in class, but then that class would come and I would barely make any progress with my essay because I would either get distracted and deep into my thoughts, or I would just be stuck on how to express myself through this writing. I wanted to write this essay in hopes that I could bring awareness to procrastination and explain more of the reasons why it’s more of a problem with mental health than a problem with someone just being lazy.