Advice: how to stop procrastinating

I've been hearing students use the word "procrastination" a lot lately. I'd be giving an extra lesson to a student who was behind on her studies, and she'd tell me that her biggest problem is procrastination. Or I'd be listening to a in-house project presentation (which we call a viva, for some reason), and on the slide entitled "Problems Encountered", there'd be the word "Procrastination" as point number one. One of my students even made a Facebook post asking if there is a job where the requirement is the ability to procrastinate, because that's his greatest skill.

And while the students all profess to know that procrastination is not a valid excuse, I get the impression that they're not all that bothered by it, or at least not bothered by it enough to stop procrastinating. They seem to wear it like a badge of honour.

Maybe it's the word itself: "Procrastination." It sounds like a scientific term, or an honorary title. These days I'm getting the impression that "procrastinator" is being held in the same regard as "introvert" or "geek" - not necessarily bad, just misunderstood. Unfortunately, unlike "introvert" or "geek", there are no redeeming qualities to being a procrastinator at all.

The Free Dictionary defines "procrastinate" as "to put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness." Therefore, although the word "procrastinator" sounds somewhat impressive, it really refers to someone who has bad time management skills or is lazy. I could call myself a "vertically challenged, horizontally abundant oriental homo sapien equipped with a visual correction device", but in the end I'm still just a short, fat Chinese guy with glasses.

For students, procrastination usually translates to not doing an assignment or studying for a test early. When the deadline looms, the student finds that they do not have enough time to do a thorough job, and so the quality of their work suffers. Do this often enough and it results in bad grades or even failing. Do I really have to explain why this is a bad thing?

It's funny 'cos it's true.

Most people procrastinate to a greater or lesser extent. I certainly do it, e.g., it took me over 2 months to write this blog post. Like anyone else, I'd much rather take a nap or play some Hearthstone instead of marking assignments or answering work emails. But I'd like to think that I have my procrastination mostly under control, so I'm going to share my technique with you.

Here's my mysterious, ultra-secret technique: just do it. That's right, simply decide to do your work rather than goof off.

"But 'cher," you say, "I just can't! Every time I think about doing my work, I am unable to concentrate and end up watching Youtube videos instead!" To this I say, yes you can, it just takes willpower and practice.

The willpower part is easy to understand. You need the willpower to get started on that dreary assignment or to open up that PowerPoint file to start studying. Now here's the secret: it also takes practice because it gets easier the more you do it. I promise this is true.

Let's look at this logically. Whenever you procrastinate, you rationalize it to yourself that you'll be OK as long as you leave yourself enough time before the deadline. The next thing you know, you've left yourself insufficient time and are unable to complete your work properly. And you feel awful about it. Then you do it again, and the death spiral continues.

Now, let's say that with a supreme effort of willpower, you manage to do your work promptly, well before the deadline. You don't lose any goofing-off time that you couldn't have afforded in the first place, and now you're able to enjoy yourself with a clear conscience. I don't know about you, but I find that I don't enjoy myself as much when I have work that I haven't done nagging at me from the back of my mind.

Start small.

I also find that maintaining a To-do list helps. Just write down everything that you need to do, along with when you need to do it. The very act of writing down your tasks is a help, because you can see at a glance the amount of stuff that you need to do. Windows 7 and 8 comes with the Sticky Notes application, which lets you write notes that appear on your desktop. This is an excellent place to put your To-do list, because you will see it every time you start your computer.

Feel free to sub-divide each task into smaller tasks, and give yourself a deadline for each sub-part. Every time you complete an item on the list, cross it out (or delete it from Sticky Notes). Personally, I love removing an item on my list after a job well done, and seeing my To-do list become just a little bit shorter.

Do this for a while, and you'll find that procrastination simply isn't worth it. Once you get used to doing your work in a timely manner, you will find that it gets easier, and you'll enjoy yourself a lot more during your well-deserved breaks. Plus your 'cher won't have to nag you so much.


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