“I will do it later”, maybe when I get home “I will do it at night”, “I will read my note when I wake up at midnight”, yet you do not set an alarm, even when you do, you sleep throughout till daylight.
“Next week okay?” and the month pass by and nothing has been done.
Procrastination is one challenge most people struggle with. The more one procrastinates, the more one steps further away from achieving an objective.
The word “PROCASTINATION” is derived from two Latin words “PRO” – Forward and “Crastinus” – Belonging to tomorrow or the future. The voluntary delaying of an intended course of action characterized by laziness, lack of self-esteem, impulsiveness, inconsistent preferences, misplaced priorities and many other factors.
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for executing brain functions such as impulse control, planning and attention. Damage of the cortex or low activation can induce an individual’s ability to filter distraction stimuli, ultimately resulting in poorer organization, loss of attention and more procrastination.
In the academic world, students as well as teachers have indicated having need for help concerning this problem. One source of this problem is planning fallacy and underestimation.
Many students devote weeks gathering research for a term paper but yet are unable to finish writing on time, usually due to poor time management.
Time management is not necessarily looking at one’s watch frequently or setting alarms. It is more of doing what one is supposed to do at the right time.
The popular students’ syndrome where a student will only begin to apply themselves to a task just immediately before a deadline, like writing a term paper at one sitting or cramming when studying for approaching examination.
All these would introduce a lot of stress, lack of sleep, all accumulating to inefficiency. The aftermath will never turn out better as it should have been if time was used efficiently and even after writing the exams, the tendency to recall what one had studied is problematic.
Procrastination tends to reduce stress associated with the intended goal, it gives immediate pleasure and is consequently attractive to the impulsive procrastinator. There is need to learn or induct better time management, as there is time for everything and time wasted cannot be regained.
Piers still recommends us to be aware of our “power hour” and work toward making every hour our power hour. Maximizing one’s power hour increase one’s feeling of self-efficiency. Simply trying harder might not really work out well as procrastination is not purely contingent on one’s will power or motivation.
If one procrastinates, one needs to understand it as a challenge and also understand one’s trigger for procrastination and work towards overcoming it. Only then can a long term strategy to combat procrastination be created. It is a difficult challenge to be defeated completely.
It is not as easy as it might seem. You can do it, I can do it, and we can do it.
Just put your mind to it.
TIME (A POEM)
Ticking away the moments the make up a dull day,
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town,
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day, you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you where to run, you missed the starting gun.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sum but it’s sinking.
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you are older,
Shorter of breath and one day, closer to death.
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines.
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
The time is gone, the song is over
Thought I’d something more to say.
