Eduardo Rodriguez
Nov 7 · 4 min read

Procrastination

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

College students like myself have problems with procrastination because we struggle to break habits created in high school.

This is a picture of my friend Victor and I getting to school early

Many college students, myself included, have problems with time management. This can be procrastination, turning in assignments late, or not having enough time to do what you need to do. I myself struggle with time management. When I have an assignment I wait until the morning of to start and finish it. This puts more pressure on me and stresses me out. I have time to do it throughout the day, but instead I decide to do it last minute. I do this because it was a strategy I did in high school and it seemed to work out, but through my first 2 months at SFSU I realized this has to be a habit I must break.

While talking to my classmates I realized that we have some of the same problems. For example, one of my classmates named Ashely decided to go get coffee when she was already late for work. I then looked to a survey of first year students at SFSU. According to the survey, 87 people of 207 procrastinate frequently. This means that about 40 percent of people of the survey put their priorities until the last minute. About 50 percent say they sometimes procrastinate and about 10 percent rarely procrastinate. This is a problem because we create more stress upon ourselves than we already have. This is a habit that a lot of us carry that started back in high school, or maybe even middle school.

This a picture of me getting a head start on my research paper

But why do we procrastinate? According to an article titled, “Why You Procrastinate: It Has Nothing to Do with Self-Control” we procrastinate to avoid certain feelings like anxiety and stress for the time being, but ultimately makes us feel worse at the end. This is referred to as present bias, prioritizing what makes us feel better now rather than what’s going to make us feel better in the future. If this is the case, the real question should be, How do we break this habit of procrastination ?

To get rid of procrastination you have to find the root cause of why you do it. You would think it’s pretty obvious, but in reality it’s way deeper than you think. Like others, I used to think people procrastinate because they were just lazy. This changed when I read, How to Address Procrastination by Marty Nemko Ph.D, a life coach and author located in Oakland, California. Nemko gives us many different reasons why you may procrastinate and gives us solutions to these problems. According to Nemko, “You’re impulsive, so you escape unpleasant tasks for pleasant ones even if it hurts you long-term.” This is one of the reasons he gives for why people procrastinate. His solution to this is to try to be more conscious of the situation. An example he uses is instead of going for a burrito, think about the task ahead and usually the person concludes that it’s better to do the pesky task at hand rather than get the burrito. This great because no one is completely the same so you can find a reason that fits closest to you. But to have a solution you must find the problem. Before doing research, I thought I procrastinate because I was lazy, but in reality it is a habit that I have accumulated over the years. More recently I procrastinate to distract myself from the problems I am having now to make myself feel better.

This is me doing my Homework for my Health Ed Justice Class a week before it’s due

I’ve tried doing many solutions to try to break my habit of procrastination, such as trying to start earlier or trying to do it in a different setting, but they didn’t work too effectively. It does help it, but it doesn’t solve the problem completely. In my engagement exercise I have been trying to work alone in a quiet place and instead of getting distracted and occupying myself to something else, I try to distract myself with an assignment.

This solution works for me because I distract myself from problems I have now with the assignment, and doing this earlier on in the day eliminates the problem of procrastination. But to truly break this habit of procrastination, I have to make the solution a stronger habit than procrastination. This is all through repetition. As long as I follow through with my solution everyday it will become second nature and will eliminate the problem of procrastination all together.

As a result of my engagement project, I do see some improvement in my procrastination, but not too much. Forcing myself to try to start school work earlier and doing this in a place where I can’t get distracted played a big role, but I find it harder to focus on my work because I am forcing myself to work in this setting. Before, I would do my work because I had to get it done by a certain time, but knowing I have extra time makes it easier for me to get distracted. But overall there is some improvement. Through time and repetition this habit will be broken.

Written by

I’m a student at SFSU. I like to spend time with my friends and my family. While I’m no tat school I’m working, playing video games or playing soccer.

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