Written by Andrea Vega
Procrastination...too many of us are very familiar with this matter. Even when we plan and try not to leave things for the last minute, we somehow still manage to find ourselves trying to finish the assignment the night before it is due. I am a senior in high school, and to this day, I still procrastinate. It is often seen as a dirty word because of the many repercussions it has.
However, procrastination is not always such a bad thing; it can help you organize things based on priority, like setting aside easy assignments to be completed last. As someone who has continuously procrastinated, I can confirm that sometimes it has helped set my preferences; this doesn’t mean you should always procrastinate because it causes a lot of stress. Throughout the years, I have avoided procrastination the more I learned to control it and become better at it. I still procrastinate, but I try to minimize the amount of stress that it can cause by reducing a few of those stressors.
Tips on mastering procrastination:
Figure out your own limits.
Knowing how long you take to complete individual assignments is an advantage. Keeping that in mind when procrastinating, will help ensure that you begin at a time that will be enough for you to turn in the assignment without any late deductions.
Always have backup plans prepared.
It has been one too many times where I have found myself completing an assignment with a few minutes left to turn in, and the computer or website decides to crash. It seems like the universe wants to make things more difficult for us when we procrastinate. For example, I prefer using google docs because if a device crashes, I can still get my work by logging in from another device.
As for recommendations on how to NOT procrastinate, that is based more on your discipline. Planning and organizing schedules are often recommended to help avoid procrastination. The methods that genuinely work for me are setting my own deadlines, using incentives, and, most importantly, taking lots of breaks. Procrastination is not great, but it’s also not horrible, and if you can manage it, then why not procrastinate?
To each their own.
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