Gotta to get your priorities straight
How a procrastinator imagines their time differently
In her 1999 text, “Read This Paper Later: Procrastination with Time-Consistent Preferences,” Carol Fischer explores the irrational, although consistent and often predictable behavior patterns of deadline-based procrastinators. She focuses specifically on time and the significant shift in the procrastinators’ allocation of time as a deadline approaches.
Fischer writes about leisure time as co-existing with productivity. She explains that the non-procrastinator completes a task or part of a task (i.e. a section of a research paper), or is otherwise productive in some manner before they enjoy leisure time. The procrastinator simply elects to put off doing the work. Fischer’s research reflects the notion that procrastinators spend time participating in leisure activities until they reach a point in which the amount of time they have remaining until a deadline is exactly how much they need to complete and fulfill the requirement; waiting until the last possible minute.
In a previous post, I explored the concept of the dark playground. Conceptualized by Tim Urban, the dark playground in a place where leisure activities happen at non-leisure time. The fun one has here isn’t actually fun because it’s unearned and the air is filled with guilt. The dark playground is an avoidance tactic.
In my research, I’ve found that student procrastinators at UMBC function as a hybrid of these two procrastination tactics mixed with a third thing: leisure prioritization.
Both concepts account for procrastinators participating in leisure activities sometime before productivity. Additionally, both see premature leisure activities as enjoyable avoidance of a required task. However, my research has indicated that student procrastinators at UMBC actually prioritize their leisure time over their work time. In other words, they make it a point to participate in leisure activities first, before they delve into homework. This is done not as a way to avoid homework or studying, but as a way to achieve self-satisfaction and relaxation.
If the typical student works on a task until it is finished and they move onto the next task, then the procrastinator follows that same model, though personal time is the first task they must accomplish, not actual homework.
In an interview, one informant remarked, “I try to make sure I have time to do what I want. That’s a big reason why I procrastinate. I want to make sure I have time to enjoy myself and not just bury myself in work all hours of the day…I prioritize my time to make sure I can do what I want and be happy before I start doing this work.”
As a result, I’ve concluded that procrastinators imagine their time differently than the non-procrastinator. The non-procrastinate is task-oriented, with the completion of the task leading to leisure time as the reward. The procrastinator, however, sees personal time as necessary, and perhaps even the motivating action, to tackling a task in the first place.