Procrastination: Secondary Research #1

My biggest problem has always been procrastination. Throughout my academic career and personal life, I always push things off until the last minute and it’s not healthy or effective for my life. I will find myself given an assignment well in advance, and then find excuses as to why I shouldn’t do it and keep pushing it back till it’s the day before its due. I know it’s a problem, a problem holding me back from being the best I can be, it’s just I can never find the motivation to change that. At this point I don’t think I will ever be able to not procrastinate and therefore not manage my time well because after everytime I stress about procrastinating an assignment I tell myself I’ll never do it again… and then I do it again.

This assignment however has shown me that if I don’t change these bad habits and develop better time management skills I will not be best I can be and reach the goals I have set for myself. While doing the Lockwood scavenger hunt, I came across a book called “Successful Time Management: A Self-Teaching Guide,” by Jack D Ferner, and in this book there is specific chapter about procrastination (chapter 11). The author argues that procrastination isn’t laziness, rather the avoidance of uncomfortable tasks, some us find it easy to do some tasks and very difficult to do others. For example, Jack Ferner writes “Avoiding unpleasant chores usually doesn’t make them go away. You must deal with them sooner or later, and they tend to get more unpleasant and worrisome as time goes by. Being aware of the price of procrastination can often prod you into action. And whether the project is big, hard, or unpalatable, you can often “psych yourself up” by imagining how good you are going to feel when you have done it.” (1995). In other words, the author is saying that procrastination is a concept you can beat, if you were to realize that what you must get done, HAS to get done and if you realize the consequences of your inaction you can finally see in the long term it’s easier to just do it sooner and feel the excitement of knowing its done, rather than the unpleasantry that it still needs to be done.

With that concept in mind, if you break down procrastination into what it is and have a plan you can avoid further unpleasantry. In the book its further stated how to tackle procrastination in 3 steps:

1. Analyze what your procrastinating about and what excuses and interruptions you find to avoid doing the unpleasant task.

2. You must make priorities and stick with them. Don’t make the same excuses and fill in the time with self-gratifying, less important tasks.

3. Have a plan! If it’s a large task subdivide it into smaller segments. Get organized and schedule yourself in a realistic time frame. The “swiss cheese” approach to hard tasks: the concept is to punch holes in the hard task and reduce it to bite size pieces.

Overall, I know I have a problem with managing my time and procrastinating and that is exactly why I chose that as the topic for my research. This chapter provided very useful information and gave me some great tips, such as the “swiss cheese” approach to doing tasks that I will definitely use going forward. I know with better time management skills and not as much procrastinating I can live a healthier, more productive life.

Works Cited

Ferner, J. D. (1995). Successful Time Management: A Self-Teaching Guide (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Wiley.