Procrastination. Without a doubt, every student’s worst enemy. I am quite sure that each one of us have fallen into the nasty trap of procrastination at one time or another. Right now, I am emerging from my fall. What can I say? It is just how it is. We’d like to think most of the time it is “totally” unintentional but let’s look into reality here. Aren’t we at fault? Most of us doesn’t want to admit the fact but the truth is really ugly, whether we like it or not.
To better understand the ugly concept of procrastination, let’s have a quick glance at its definition. I am quite sure each of us define the term in our very own ways but the meaning just revolves around one: the delaying or deferment of a task at hand. Don’t worry. I am not here to deliver a lecture on procrastinating because who am I to? For all I know, I could be the worst victim of it. My intentions are clear here. Just wanted to share what I know of why we do it.
Why do we procrastinate? According to psychologists, “it acts as a mechanism to deal with the anxiety of starting or completing a task”. Assignments could wait but our fun can’t, right?! Isn’t that how we get into it in the first place? We always put the ‘fun factor’ first. Inevitably, then comes the guilt. Just like researchers in this area would define feeling a sense of guilt as a stage of procrastination. Because God knows, during this Raya holiday I had plenty of time to complete my assignments and did I finish any of them? Just so that I don’t feel guilty while I am at the Platinum Movie Suite indulging in all the worldly luxury, I gave a head-start to the projects and temporarily erase them from my mind. How convenient? Since I knew (at some unconscious level) that I’d to put an end to this procrastination sooner or later and get on with it. Sigh!
We are so accustomed to procrastinating that we often neglect to see the ‘real problem’ here. I mean why procrastinate when we obviously know its not the end of the problem but merely the beginning. It is simple. I can only say for myself but as far as my grades are not terribly affected, I’m in carefree mode. Because who cares about whether we are at fault when we eventually get the work done, procrastinating or otherwise? Because in the end we get it all done, don’t we?
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