Perhaps it’s the temptation to scrawl a witty inscription on a Belk Library study desk. Maybe your favorite band came out with a new album today, or maybe you stumbled onto a fascinating new website that you just can’t resist surfing. Regardless of all this, it’s college, we’re busier than ever, we’ve got stuff to do and we’ll do it — tomorrow.
Procrastination is the bane of any college student’s existence. When overwhelmed with homework or commitments to an organization, overachievers get to work right away, setting aside plenty of time to complete everything that gets assigned.
This method works— especially if you actually use it—but it leaves no time for college students to socialize, participate in extracurricular activities or spend time developing themselves as individuals. This causes students to push work farther and farther back so they can do what they want to instead of doing what must be done. But what must be done isn’t what always piques the interest of a typical college kid.
Scholarly articles are not found in Playboy, and research papers aren’t exactly the next big thing either. Other than the content of college work, the quantity of it is staggering and additional commitments to on-campus organizations pile up quicker than dirty laundry. An article by Piers Steel in Psychological Bulletin states that, “Three out of four college students consider themselves procrastinators.”
That means 75 percent of all college students are more likely to be found on Facebook and Twitter or out partying than with their head buried in a book or talking with a professor about the next assignment that’s due. Doing today what you could’ve done yesterday has its consequences, however alluring pulling an all-nighter hyped up on Red Bull and Skittles through dreary eyes and a tired mind might be.
According to Psychology Today, procrastination can cause insomnia, a compromised immune system, gastrointestinal problems and resentment from others who have to pick up your slack to get things done on time. Maybe we’re all perfectionists and we’re afraid of failure on an assignment, so we obsess over the smallest details making progress at a snail’s pace, or maybe we simply don’t even begin the task at hand.
Or, instead of beginning the task, we browse the Web for some “inspiration” that turns into a two hour reward for 15 minutes of work. Either way, procrastination causes people to feel unhappy, less healthy and more stressed out— and it has to stop.
Before you procrastinate again, think of the consequences and reconsider. Put on an upbeat playlist that helps you jive on through the wor. Drink ice cold water to wake yourself up and realize that you could have already done the thing you were thinking about doing if you would have just done it when you first started thinking about it.
Whatever you do, don’t hit that StumbleUpon button.