I don’t want to say that everyone procrastinates but, in all honesty, most people procrastinate at least a little. I personally know a thing or two about procrastination as I tend to procrastinate sometimes. I often ask myself why do students, myself included, procrastinate so frequently. I thought about this and discussed it briefly with a few of my peers. Here are some things that we have found and discussed.
One of the big reasons for procrastination I decided was because of laziness and the “I simply don’t want to” attitude. There are lots of people that are just simply lazy. They come up with any excuse possible such as, my cat died so I am sulking. I lost my favorite left sock. I need to work on my love life more. These are just a few simple excuses that are not really a good enough reason to put off your work until last minute but for someone feeling lazy it is a good enough excuse for procrastination. Lazy people just don’t want to do it and any small thing can stop him or her from continuing his or her work. My best definition for this kind of procrastination comes from a commonly said phrase in the Philippines that I translated that says, “If you want to do something there is a way but, if you do not want to do something there are many excuses.”
Sometimes its not that we are finding excuses but that we simply have so much going on and are overwhelmed. The overwhelming for some people comes from work and classes. Some jobs are very tiring and take up many hours of the day. Working while going to school takes time away from homework and forces students to cram work in at the last minute. For others this overwhelming is just from classes. We as students sometimes have so much homework that we line up our homework for each class and you just do what is due first and then move down the line. Sometimes this turns into getting everything done the day of or the night before it is actually due.
Some things get procrastinated when that person does not know how to do the assignment. We tend to think it as easier to just ignore them and ask for help at the last minute rather than ask for help at the beginning and get it done sooner. It is so much easier to turn to something you know than it is to fight something you don’t know. If you really don’t know it and you really don’t want to do it then it would make sense not to do it or to just shove it to the side until you have someone to do it fully or partially for you.
There are many distractions in our world today. This combined with the short attention span of students nowadays adds to the procrastination. Everything around us is fighting for our attention making it so much easier to pull our attention away from what we need to get done and push it to the very last minute possible. Simple things become excessive distractions when a student has been sitting for even brief periods of time.
Another reason for procrastination is addiction. Addiction comes in many different forms but, I think that addiction in any form can lead to procrastination. Some people simply cannot put their phones down. They feel the need for social media and knowing what is going on with their friends and even the world outside of theirs. They want to know about celebrities and other unimportant things. They stare all day because they are addicted and can’t put it down long enough to do their assignments until the very last minute and their only other choice is failing. The same with all addictions that you just have to have that thing whatever it is and you aren’t as effective in your work and you procrastinate until the end.
I have noticed that one thing that leads to procrastination is the need for social life. Some people feel like they need their social life. They would rather spend time with friends now and do their work last minute than sacrifice their precious social time. This is a big thing for some people that can take many hours a day and detract from homework forcing students to do it all last minute. Part of this social life involves dating and finding an eternal companion. Which once found takes even more time from school and makes procrastination just as much a reoccurring thing.
When all these things are added together it creates an environment for procrastination. This turns procrastination into a systematic thing making students procrastinate everyday and doing all their assignments at the very last minute. There are so many different things causing procrastination that most people will procrastinate every so often, and some people may procrastinate everyday of their lives.
