It’s a miracle anyone even gets to read this essay, considering how much I procrastinated when writing it. Procrastination is a daily struggle for me, impacting many parts of my life. As I try to start my projects, it feels as though I am weighed down, my brain unable to think, and my fingers unable to move. I long for an easier obligation, a shorter task, or an instantly rewarding distraction. I lull myself into a false sense of responsibility, after all, I have a week left for this project. Yet too soon, that week becomes a day, and all I have to show for my time are a few meaningless words. Yet in the past, I have always managed to complete my assignments, so why should I try anything new? This conflict between what I know is responsible and what I feel is reasonable is constant, affecting nearly every decision I make.
The motivation is clear: Why spend hours struggling to get past a mental block when distraction is there, ready to take away my guilt and turn it into short lived entertainment? After all, I’m doing alright in school, so I can afford a little distraction. Despite knowing what the outcome will be, I find it too easy to brush tasks aside. Even when I decide to begin working, procrastination can play a role. Just a sentence written is excuse enough to push aside the obligation in exchange to look up something which won’t matter to me in 5 minutes. I feel that this quote from The Screwtape Letters exemplifies this pattern well. “He may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, ‘I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked’” (Lewis 12). This quote describes how the demon Screwtape caused a man to live a life of apathy. He distracted the man from both the tasks at hand while also not allowing him to enjoy his life. I interpret this as the man feeling too guilty about his distractions to enjoy what he would rather be doing. This is something that I can identify with, as I often feel the same way. I would rather be programming or playing a game, but instead I just endlessly scroll. This causes me to regret the time wasted more than if I had chosen to do what I actually wanted.
While it has not yet afflicted my school performance, I believe this pattern of procrastination is harmful. While putting off tasks in the moment relieves a bit of stress, it is only temporary. As the pile of tasks waiting for completion grows ever higher, it becomes even more difficult to begin one. This cycle continues until the night everything is due, leaving me with hardly any time. Despite these challenges, there are some things that have worked for me. For example, instead of focusing on the task as a whole, break it down into smaller parts you can complete in 15 minutes or so (such as finding a source, or creating the outline of a paragraph). Another method that can help is to create deadlines for these small tasks. This makes every task manageable, and keeps the project on track for timely completion. Finally, and maybe the best way to avoid procrastination, is peer accountability. If you are the one who can’t hop on the game because you didn’t finish your math, your friends might be disappointed in you. If another person is depending on the completion of a task, not letting them down can be a motivator.
While procrastination is a real struggle for me, using these methods to make it more manageable has helped, and I have an easier time completing tasks efficiently.
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