One Task and No Action:
A task is given to you and you do not want to get started right away. You think you will do it later, but the time never seems to be right!
This act of voluntarily delaying tasks is termed as general procrastination.
Why Can’t We Act?
When we are given a task to complete, we think of the resources required to complete it. If we feel or think that we do not have these resources, we end up putting it off. These resources could be physical (writing materials, digital devices, expert guidance etc) or psychological – which will be discussed in this blog.
Academic Procrastination
The act of delaying tasks or leaving them unfinished, related to studies and academics is termed as academic procrastination.
This type of procrastination is only in certain cases. Students complete some tasks efficiently and some others – they just cannot convince themselves to complete. A research study shows that procrastination was almost always present among students when it came to studying for tests and completing assignments, but it decreased when it came to administrative work.
Reasons For Academic Procrastination
It is important to remember that procrastination does not necessarily mean a student is lazy. Although laziness does contribute to this type of delaying the act of studying or completing assignments/ homeworks. A study shows students that perform low academically, tend to be lazy and procrastinate. The same also shows that students who perform well in academics have low capability in accomplishing a certain task, and hence, procrastinate. It becomes important to understand and differentiate between the various reasons that lead to procrastination.
Students may also lack either intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to act upon a task.
There are also instances when students put off tasks and spend time online surfing the net on irrelevant topics, doom-scrolling on social media, adding shopping items to the cart on ecommerce websites. Researchers have shown low self-control and perseverance along with a high tendency of boredom leads to online procrastination. All these acts temporarily relieve the discomfort experienced before starting a task and can become a negative habit in the long run. Eventually leading to not accomplishing tasks or finding an unhealthy way to perform the tasks for the sake of it.
If a student is identified as not having problems with motivation, is not lazy, does not indulge in online procrastination, they can be taught effective time management strategies to complete tasks.
Emotions And Affect of Academic Procrastination
An experimental research study explores that general procrastination will lead to indecision or decisional procrastination. If a person has been indecisive for a long time, it affects their ability to recall happy memories and describe them in detail. In simpler terms, they experience less happiness than others.
Forcing an indecisive person to manage their time will not sustain long, as it is a form of extrinsic motivation.
The role of intrinsic motivation is huge in dealing with procrastination and realizing the lack of it is the first step to break free from the shackles of delaying tasks.
What Can Be Done To Deal With Procrastination
To deal with the issue of procrastination, it requires understanding of the underlying psychological problem and tackling that to see results that lead to acting and eventually, completing tasks.
It is important to note that a simple task cannot define your self worth and if you are reminded repeatedly of incidents when you could not complete a task, those thoughts are only blocking your happiness and hence, preventing you from even taking an action in the present.
Practice some of these affirmations to break from the negative thought patterns:
Not achieving something in the past doesn’t mean I can’t achieve new things now
Every experience, even the unfinished ones, has taught me something valuable
I am allowed to grow at my own pace
My worth is not measured by past achievements, but by who I am becoming
Additional Tips To Overcome General Procrastination
- Break tasks into smaller, manageable steps – Chunking lengthy or complex tasks helps in reducing the anxiety.
- Complete an unpleasant task and follow that by a reward – When an unpleasant stimulus is paired with a pleasant reward, the effect is minimized and gives a sense of gratification.
- Done list instead of to-do list – Within half a day of starting a specific task, make a list of things that you have completed and reflect on the time it took to complete. Evaluate the time spent to work done ratio and plan for the next half mindfully.
Therapy To Professionally Deal With Procrastination
Do not hesitate to seek professional help if you are experiencing difficulty with your procrastination. Therapists are trained to provide non-judgemental, positive and effective strategies to overcome this challenge.
Think only to Act. Act only to Feel.
References
Ahmed, I., Bernhardt, G. V., & Shivappa, P. (2023). Prevalence of academic procrastination and its negative impact on students. Biomedical and Biotechnology Research Journal (BBRJ), 7(3), 363-370.
Dautov, D. (2020). Procrastination and laziness rates among students with different academic performance as an organizational problem. In E3S web of conferences (Vol. 210, p. 18078). EDP Sciences.
Meng, X., Pan, Y., & Li, C. (2024). Portraits of procrastinators: A meta-analysis of personality and procrastination. Personality and Individual Differences, 218, 112490.
Sümer, C., & Büttner, O. B. (2022). I’ll do it–after one more scroll: the effects of boredom proneness, self-control, and impulsivity on online procrastination. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 918306.
