When you hear the word procrastination what comes first to mind? An excuse for not carrying out a task and postponing it to a later time? A wall shielding you from doing something? an act of laziness? Or nothing to worry about. Well, which ever way you see it, there is no doubt that it has appeared to be a major problem for many secondary school and university students among other areas in life as it has robbed time away from people, leading to regrets over the lost time which could have been used to accomplish many important tasks.
Procrastination simply means voluntarily delaying, avoiding or postponing what you could do at a particular time with the hope of doing it at a later time and perhaps the most common type of procrastination is academic procrastination.
For example, postponement of studying for a test or an exam or writing a term paper which is usually done intentionally and could go on to become a habit for many and it comes in many ways such as not starting a task, not finishing a task or taking longer time than required to complete a task or requiring too much information to make a decision. But can we really avoid procrastination?
The simple truth is that we cannot totally avoid procrastinating over things as it is inevitable but the good news is that with the right mindset and strategies, a war can be declared against it thereby “reducing the level of procrastination”.
I will mention some of the techniques which have worked for me, helping me drastically reduce my level of procrastination which I was well into during my first two years in college and I hope you choose for yourselves which ones you think would work best for you towards procrastinating less but before we dive into how to get over procrastination, let’s take a brief look on why students procrastinate and the effects that comes with it.
Why Do Students Procrastinate?
I suggest we can start by asking ourselves the reasons why we had to procrastinate and according to researches. Some of the reasons why students procrastinate include: difficulty in making decisions whereby one might decide to postpone it to a later day with the hope of being at a better position to perform the task by then; poor time management which can lead to forgeting of tasks and leaving aside studying without any specific purpose until the last moments or working on less important activities; lack of interest or motivation in an activity maybe because it is too overwhelming or because it won’t be much of a risk if you avoid doing it at a stipulated time which will lead to last minute work; distraction which could come from friends, neighbours or your mobile device among others. It could also be as a result of having other more important tasks to do which might be thought to be a good excuse but whatever the reason may be, procrastination can lead to various effects such as: reduction in quality and quantity of learning which lead to a reduction academic performance can be experienced since much could be done had it been the task was performed earlier, loss of precious time which could be spent doing other things like visiting friends, family or having fun, regrets when you realize that you could have done more and procrastinating was never necessary, regrets when you realize that you could have done more and procrastinating was never necessary, damage to ones reputation for not delivering on time and anxiety.
HOW TO GET OVER PROCRASTINATION
Organization of tasks and time management: this is where having a to-do list is important and it is a list that would contains all the task you would want to accomplish daily along with the respective times that you would want to accomplish them. This would take just around 5-10 minutes to prepare and can be prepared at any time, preferrably in the morning. Allocating time to the tasks is very important because knowing before-hand that you have a specific amount of time may be minutes or hours for the respective tasks would help elevate one’s focus while performing each task. Below is a sample of a nice to-do list.
I also organize mine using an app called google calendar which is user friendly and can be found in mobile android devices or at google play store if not; what I love about it is that it makes it easier for you to key in your tasks while assigning the time you would want to accomplish them simultaneously and again the colour coding where by I can use different colours to specify how important each task is. I usually highlight the most important tasks with red which help me realize which ones I should never give a thought about procrastinating on while I use other colours to indicate those that could done later on if there is need to fill the void with a task that is considered more important.
Another app I would recommend is Todoist which is very amazing and would easily help in making your to-do list as well as add stuffs like list of tasks you would want to do later on and also project lists such as to-study list or reading list.
Setting simple, achievable goals is necessary as it gives a sense of relaxation and focus while carrying out a task. This is also great because you assign the time which you consider would be enough to accomplish a task thereby avoiding the stress and frustration that can be encountered in setting goals which would not be likely achieved.
Do the most challenging task first: most people including me have higher concentration and will-power earlier in the day, so it makes sense to do most challenging tasks first. This will boost one’s motivation and every other task willl be easier after the first task. However, I remember to set a time-limit for the most challenging task, so I don’t spend all day doing it and in a case whereby I was not able to complete some of the challenging tasks, I reassign them to a later date for their completion. If a task is too huge, I usually seperate them into chunks of time and depending on the task, maybe across different days because this helps in boosting one’s will-power when it is time to get on with the task, making things easier.
Take a break in-between sessions: when your timer goes off, take a 10–30-minute break. Listen to music, take a walk, or maybe call a friend—anything that takes your mind off of work and allows you to relax. I usually use an app called Forest which allows me to set the amount of time I need to perform a task and also remind me of when to take a break depending on how I did the settings which is pretty amazing. You can also try out Focus meter which is also an amazing app with other great features.
Limit distractions: turn off E-mail and mobile notifications or listen to music using headphones if that suits you well in order to focus. Why? because our brains will unconsciously look for reasons to pull us away from tasks we want carry out into other unnecessary activities. Your brain spots a notification and before you know it, you’re not doing the task you set out to do.
So that's all and I hope you'd be encouraged to practice as many of these as possible and get to know which ones work best for you as you get more work done and feeling more productive as well. Also remember that getting used to these techniques is a gradual process, so avoid beating yourself up if you have a slip-up: instead, reset your goals, do some self-reflection to learn from the experience and have another go.
👍
ReplyDelete