Many college students, myself included, are all too familiar with procrastination. There always seems like there’s some assignment that needs to be completed, but my motivation is always at an absolute low. I have been this way for most of my educational career, and you would think by now I would’ve grown out of this bad habit, but unfortunately, my procrastination has stuck around and has somehow managed to get worse. I feel bad about myself whenever I know a deadline is approaching and still fail to start the assignment until a day before it’s due.
It certainly doesn’t help that my best friend is a “precrastinator”. She’s the type of student that I envy. One who is extremely organized and works weeks ahead on schoolwork. It’s funny because we both have this extreme fear of failure. You would think that somehow that would urge me to be more proactive in my work, but it has no effect on my procrastination tendencies. I won’t sit here and say that I’m a bad student because I don’t think that’s true. I avoid late assignments like the plague and do try my best when I turn things in. It’s just more about the timeline for when I complete the work.
Because I have such a fear complex surrounding the work that I produce and turn in, I am extremely demotivated to start it. I feel like if I start too early, then I won’t feel the pressure of making my best product, but when I have the deadline looming over my head, I am forced to put my absolute best foot forward because I won’t have enough time to make in-depth edits to the project. Every time I try and explain my reasoning, I get judgmental looks, and I know that it’s a bit unconventional, but there is something that I can’t overcome.
I haven’t been burned yet, and that’s why I continue with this mentality, but even I know that it isn’t a sustainable method. I have many theories for why my procrastination has steadily increased as I’ve gotten older, and I think it has a lot to do with how daunting everything seems and the burnout I try to deny. The sheer amount of work that I constantly feel like I have to do overwhelms me, and I think that if I worked on my homework all day, I would become completely consumed by it, and my burnout would be ever-present. I have a fatalistic mentality and am deathly afraid of the future. I have years of schooling ahead of me, and the pain and suffering never seem to end, so why not have a little relaxation now?
I’m not this way with everything; it is mostly just papers that I have to write. When it comes to studying for exams, that’s a little easier for me because I am able to create a schedule for when I should study and what I should focus on. But something about writing a paper seems so personal to me. Exams are usually multiple-choice, and it’s hardly your own creation being scrutinized. Writing a paper demonstrates my writing skill, and that’s something that I value deeply. I love to read and write, and my English classes are some of my favorites that I have taken while in college. When my writing is being judged, I get so worried that I’m going to fail and that it will reflect my inability to perfect the skill, so then I don’t even make an attempt until I absolutely must.
To an onlooker, it may seem like I don’t want to do my work or that I’m being lazy when I procrastinate, but it is so much deeper than that for me. There is a lot that I need to work on in order to overcome this and become the absolute best student that I can be. I don’t want to let people down and feel so much pressure to live up to expectations, but procrastinating doesn’t solve anything. Instead of worrying so much about failure, I should start focusing more on improving and refining the things I do create. Unfortunately, that’s much more easily said than done, but definitely not impossible.
