Procrastination is Damaging

By: Teanne Z.

 

 

Sitting at your desk, legs shaking, hands sweaty, your teacher in your face, breathing down your neck. “Where is it?'' she asks in such a stern way you feel like crying. All you can do is sit there and wait as the regret floods in. Imagine feeling like a disappointment. Procrastination is a brutal thing, not to mention horrible for your future. It can feel so good to just say you’re going to do it later, watch some tik tok and forget all about it. But when it comes time you push it off even longer. Later, later, later. Until you're at that exact position, feeling like you're about to pass out.

I think we all can agree that procrastination is tempting. A lot of people think of themselves as a bad person afterwards, but it doesn’t make you a bad person. A professor in physiology actually says, “It’s not about time management.” So then what is it about? Many things. Most of the time it's because of having the mindset of, "if I don't do it, they can't judge my ability." People who procrastinate because of this are usually very taciturn or reticent, meaning they keep to themselves most of the time. Another cause of this problem is simply just not wanting to take responsibility. Based on a study, about 85 to 90 percent of students procrastinate. Procrastination is usually based on anxiety. To top it off, procrastinators usually blame their failure on lack of time.

Procrastination also has super negative impacts when you're older. According to a study, “one in two adults say that procrastination has had a bad result in their future, and one in five adults say it impacted them horribly.” According to Oxford Learning, “students who procrastinate experience higher levels of frustration, guilt, stress, and anxiety.”  It can end up hurting your career and threaten your happiness. Oxford Learning also says that procrastination can get worse and worse over time. Maybe missing a couple of assignments in middle school can lead to missing bigger projects in high school. It also creates anxiety, which of course is something that you don’t want. The worst of all, missing opportunities, and there's nothing worse than sitting on your deathbed and realising you let life pass you by.

If it's hurting your future that bad, just stop, right? Wrong. “Telling a chronic procrastinator to just do it is like telling a depressed person to just cheer up,” states Joseph Ferrari. Based on a wgu.edu study, procrastinating is so hard to stop because there is a chemical released by your brain. The more feelings you have the more chemicals are created. It’s almost like your brain gets addicted to the chemical. To try and stop you can motivate the person or yourself. Before you can start, because procrastinators commonly feel guilty after, forgive yourself. Let go of the past and focus on the future. Some ways to stop procrastinating are promising yourself a reward and limiting distractions. If you have a friend, sibling or parent nearby, you could ask them to check up on you every once in a while. Another option is trying the “eat an elephant beetle” method. It means to do the hardest  thing as early in the day as possible so you have the rest of the day to relax. One way I personally stop procrastinating is listening to music to try and block out my thoughts. Getting into a comfy position might help too. Sometimes, if I really can’t complete the task because I can’t focus, I’ll do something else productive.

For the sake of our futures, we must stop procrastinating. You do not want to be the person who no one can trust or rely on. We must stand above procrastination. Next time you have something important to do, try some of these methods. I guarantee you, if you stop procrastinating you will have a much healthier and happier life!