 |
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
Solving the mystery of why people procrastinate
The Advocate
It's there and you know it.
It might be buried in the dark nooks beneath your subconscious to-do list, but it's still there festering until you face it head on.
You have allowed weeks to go by, but you know that it's coming and perhaps out of fear you have let everything else take priority.
Even cleaning your shoes becomes attractive compared to the task that has been pushed aside.
Procrastination, says Jessica Jozaitis, MHCC education major, is something she does quite a bit and regrets once she realizes it.
"I ask myself, 'Why did I do this,' " she said.
Jozaitis might procrastinate for many reasons but it is more commonly related to fear, according to Larry Gilius, MHCC's Learning Success Center coordinator.
"Procrastination is the habit of putting painful things off needlessly," said Gilius. "You could be putting them off not for any real reason or you may have a good reason, but it's more than likely out of fear of something."
The fear could be resulting from a bad childhood experience, growing up in a negative environment or, the most common, fear of failure.
"You might be afraid of failure," said Gilius. "You might think people are watching your every move, waiting for you to fail."
Simply feeling overwhelmed and uncomfortable with success are also common reasons why people put off things.
Gilius presents student success seminars on avoiding procrastination and said "negative thinking and self-talk" are common triggers that lead to students avoiding what they know they need to do.
"They could be telling themselves, 'I don't really care about this project' or 'I'm not going to do well anyways,'" Gilius said.
Journalism major John Tkebuchava said he relates to this. "If it's something I want to write about or I'm passionate about, I'm much less likely to procrastinate and will stay on top of it."
Negative self-talk is harmful to one's image of themselves, according to Gilius, which results in inflicting pain. "It's human nature to avoid pain," he said. "We often put off pain, not wanting to deal with the painful things until later."
"The opposite of that is making a conscious plan to do what you need to do sooner rather than later," said Gilius.
"You have a choice of turning stuff in last minute and stressing about it, which builds up the anxiety, or you can get it done early and relieve that anxiety," he said.
"We should always be thinking of doing the hard and painful things sooner," says Gilius. "The simple reason is to get it out of the way."
MHCC psychology instructor Stephanie Cramm says procrastination is a defense mechanism brought on to help cope with situations that create anxiety, stress or worry.
"By nature, defense mechanisms are subconscious or preconscious, and tend to distort reality," Cramm says.
Denial is a factor of procrastination and Cramm says it is backed up with another defense mechanism: rationalization.
"Rationalization is particularly used if a person procrastinates too long and is stuck then facing the music," said Cramm.
Cramm said other psychological components to procrastination may include a social explanation.
"Procrastination is tolerated as something many people do," she said. "In cultures where procrastination is not tolerated in this way, it is a rare event. Individualistic cultures have more procrastination than collectivist cultures."
Another aspect is people continue to procrastinate because the behavior is rewarding in some way.
"It could be positive reinforcement, gaining the reward of having fun doing something else that out-weighs the consequences of procrastinating, or it could be negative reinforcement, the removal of the noxious experience -- so that one feels better or less stressed out by avoiding facing or doing the task (which) has been perceived as causing the stress/anxiety," Cramm said. "Like a phobia, one feels relief every time they evade the fear, thus strengthening the avoidance behavior."
A journalism student, Jordan Tichenor, said he often finds himself procrastinating. "The only thing I can ever find to help is setting up short-term deadlines for small progress on whatever I'm working on. Instead of saying, 'I need to have all of this done a week from now,' I say, 'I need to get a third of this done in two days.' "
Gilius said the Learning Success Center offers assistance to people who have an issue with procrastination. They can help narrow the possible causes of someone resorting to procrastination and provide tools and techniques for the "cure."
An "Avoiding Procrastination" seminar is offered once every term. Gilius said steps suggested by Gilius in the seminars include students realizing they are delaying something unnecessarily and recognize when they are doing it, figure out why they are doing it and argue against those reasons, then take immediate action.
"It doesn't have to be big action," says Gilius. "Cut out some small pieces of a project and ask yourself if there's something you can do for 10 minutes to help me start that research paper. Usually you will end up doing more than what was planned."
Gilius said it's important that students not only say to themselves they are going to do something, but that they commit to it by jotting it down on a planner.
"Don't just say you're going to start the paper — schedule it, commit to it, and keep whatever momentum you have going," Gilius said.
Utilizing friends and family can help keep students committed to their goal as well, according to Gilius. "Tell them the plan and that you're depending on them to keep you responsible," he said.
"Say to yourself, 'If I study for 30 minutes from 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., then I can go out with my friends tonight," said Gilius. "Recognizing your progress will increase your energy and boosts self-esteem."
Describing herself as the "queen of procrastination," Jozaitis says, "I don't think there could possibly be a cure for procrastination."
Gilius agreed, saying, "There is no one technique that will be the cure all. Students should just take small steps to overcome procrastination."
The Advocate reserves the right to not publish comments based on their appropriateness.