I am an EXTREME Type B person. Especially when it comes to procrastination. Sometimes I don’t start my homework before 10pm . . . maybe a lot later sometimes. This semester had a slow start – I didn’t have any tests for my entire first month so I literally was doing almost nothing in terms of work. But I need a good GPA now before I take chemistry next semester and inevitably ruin it. So three weeks in, I decided enough was enough and made myself a promise: I wasn’t going to procrastinate at all for an entire school week. I’d let myself socialize as much as I would any week, but all my free time would be spent studying. And from the week of February 11th to 15th, the last week before my tests started, I tried it out.
Monday (2/11):
I got off to a decent start when I used my hour between classes to get caught up on my marine biology readings instead of just watching Netflix, but by the afternoon I was having trouble. Monday is the only day that I have class well into the afternoon (since I start at 8 AM most days), and for once my 5 classes in one day seemed appealing since there was less time to waste. The problem was that I didn’t have a lot of work to begin with so I wasn’t sure what I’d do during my free time. By the time I got back to the dorm around 5, I felt myself struggling. As 9 PM approached, I resorted to things getting iffier and iffier (checking my email constantly, doing every single move I remembered from the mindful movement class I haven’t thought about since high school, and doing a face mask). For once, I went to bed early, which is something I never do even though I take such early classes.
Tuesday (2/12):
Again, the day started off well. I only had two classes and, while waiting for my friend that had a later class to get lunch, I did a lot of work (I usually do better while not in my dorm for some reason). But things took a turn for the worse in the afternoon since it started snowing a lot. We had a Her Campus meeting but it got canceled, which I was counting on to not feel like I had to work for 8 straight hours or something. I hate winter and snow so much I wrote an article about it, so you can see the snow wasn’t exactly the motivation I needed. I tried to remain somewhat productive (I planned out all my articles for the rest of the semester which I would NEVER normally do!) but I ended up not starting my actual work for a while. The end of the week felt so far away. Since I’m a DJ at WTBU, a highlight was making my playlist for my show on Wednesday. I think even a productive person who never procrastinates would say that was okay. I still finished all my homework pretty quickly and I managed to get to the gym for the last twenty minutes before it closed even though the weather was still terrible, something I probably wouldn’t have done normally.
Wednesday (2/13):
I continued the pattern of getting work done in the breaks between my classes in the morning, and after lunch it wasn’t so bad since I knew I was going out with my friend for dinner which used up a little more time than just going to the dining hall. Since I still didn’t have that much homework, I started putting important events on my calendar – birthdays, midterms, etc., which I literally never would dream of doing any other week. I went to bed at a decent hour again, and I realized that my procrastination was impacting my sleep schedule more than I care to admit.
Thursday (2/14):
I was a little intimidated by the sheer amount of free time I had on Thursday since I only have one class on Thursdays. But it ended up filling up pretty quickly between our Galentine’s Day party for Her Campus and a study session with some friends (that got less and less productive but I guess better than procrastinating on my own). Usually, I finish my articles right before they’re due on Sundays, but I finished last week’s article on Thursday while waiting to have lunch with my friend again. I’m writing this exactly a week later on Thursday again, so I think this experiment might have actually had some lasting positive effects. I also did most of my online Spanish homework that’s due on Sunday night on Thursday, which, come to think of it, maybe I’ll do right after this.
Friday (2/15):
After I finished my classes, I didn’t have anything to do until the night but the experiment was officially over, so I basically went back to my lazy self and watched YouTube for hours! But I did have the feeling that maybe I didn’t always have to do that. My issue in the past was that I know some people feel guilty when they procrastinate, but for some reason, I never felt that. But even after a week of (minimal) procrastination, I felt a little bit of guilt.
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I chose a week when I still didn’t have that much work, which might have made this whole thing more pointless as I spent more time trying to come up with work due in a few weeks I could do if I absolutely had to than actually focusing on my immediate priorities, but the end result wasn’t so bad. I started doing Type A things like planning out my schedule (which I normally don’t see the point of), but now I can see how they’re not so bad. I’m more excited to write my upcoming Her Campus articles since I was able to really think about what I wanted to write about instead of just picking topics at the last second before pitches were due. Obviously, I wasn’t perfect with this no procrastination thing, but I think I’ll try it out again when I do have a test or two and maybe it’ll really help my grades.
If you struggle with procrastination as I do, I suggest you try this out; even if you don’t do it for long, doing a little work now will save you from doing extra work later. If you’re way more organized than me and can’t relate to this, I applaud you and I have to say it’s not like I completely changed in a week but I can see how the motivation to get everything done right away can build up. Maybe someday I’ll get there . . .
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