By christineb.
December 9th, 10:20
Finish reading this by today!
Let’s be honest guys, we all know it. Your room is messy? Let’s clean it after finishing that TV show you’ve been binging. You’ve got a long-term school project to do? Why stress, when there’s still plenty of time till it’s due? Though it might seem harmless, these are signs of procrastination, which each and every one of us needs to deal with, before it gets too severe.
Although procrastination isn’t exclusive to schoolwork, it does typically and most commonly show up and get recognized by individuals for the first time in this setting. You are more likely to put off tasks that you’re not necessarily interested in, or which seem insignificant, as they will only start to become a problem in the future. Such examples include various types of school assignments and long-term projects, which were announced at the beginning of the year and forgotten about the very next day. “Get it ready till the Christmas break”, said the teacher and soon out of three months became two, became one, became two weeks and ended up as an all-nighter in complete disaster with anxiety and stress.
But as already mentioned, non-school-related stuff also finds its place under the term ‘procrastination’. Not cleaning your room, nor ironing your clothes or watering your plants fall under that category, because they seem like things you could do any time. Only downside, you never seem to find time, because there’s always one more episode of “Glee” waiting for you!
However, as well as we all know but hate to admit, this behavior is very unhealthy and should be dealt with seriously. In addition to the household names such as, chronic stress and anxiety, people tend to feel deeply demotivated and guilty about not being as productive as they’d like to be. Taking these feelings of guilt even further, you could start feeling depressed. Cramming for an exam or working on a project in one or two nights, obviously leads to a lack of sleep and to an irregular sleep schedule, making it hard to focus during the day. From that point on, all these adverse effects send you spiraling down a rabbit hole, which cannot be escaped easily.
In order to avoid that, there are multiple habits and techniques to pick up, which can help you to improve on your productivity.For once, you should get used to adding short breaks into your study session. Rather than spending time on your phone in these breaks, you should consider some light activity, such as breathing exercises or a bit of yoga. Nowadays there are many apps that use the pomodoro method, to help you with a steady study flow. Things like study time and break length can be changed to your liking. In addition to that, some apps keep a record of your activity, so seeing how many study sessions you’ve completed can make you feel even more motivated. Oftentimes you can feel overwhelmed by the amount of work and simply don’t know where to start, so keeping a checklist can really help you keep things organized. And last but not least, make your work seem less like work! Do you like designing stuff? Add a little bit of spice and creativity to your projects, so you will want to work on them.
As you can see, there are a lot of things that could help you increase and improve your work ethics. There is absolutely no need to stress or panic about your next assignment as long as you keep things organized!
Christine Budan 7M // December 2021
Oberstufe // Non-Fiction // Blog post about ‘procrastination’