Procrastination, Deadlines And Performance: Self-Control By Precomittment

Procrastination is a trait that “hides” in many of us. It is very easy to acquire but difficult to shake. Though it is not good to have, I have learned that with hard work you can overcome this ailment. Procrastination is never a good trait. It always seem to be something I couldn’t avoid; however this time I think it made my end product even better.

Many of us can recognize that leaving things to the very last minute is not very wise and can cause an abundance of unnecessary stress. Procrastination is self-sabotage whether it’s to pay a credit card bill, fill up gas in your car, or complete your homework. Procrastination ranges from the most miniscule task to the most significant ones so the question is why do people procrastinate? For myself I rationalize this behavior by saying I work best under pressure but through my recent discoveries I found this isn’t true at all, it was just an excuse. The heavy pressure we feel when an important deadline is approaching physically forces us to complete our work but that doesn’t always mean that our work is good. Starting a project weeks before it is due guarantees that we had time to think and process your ideas therefore our work is our work is generally well-prepared. Starting an assignment the night before it’s due forces us to rush through it just to get it done it does not ensure that our best abilities are being put to use and usually ensures that our best abilities are being put to use and usually ensures that it’s satisfactory at its best from a psychological standpoint procrastinators can adapt

Carolyn Foster Segal sarcastically discussed the numerous reasons students came to her in need of turning in assignments late. Most reasons were so redundant and absurd that she had to title her essay about her experiences as a college professor, "The Dog Ate My Disk, and Other Tells of Woe." However, as a student, I can understand why a student face so many obstacles while seeking success in their overall education and, specifically, seeking punctuality in their assignments. Whether it is from their home situation, overall well-being, the work itself, or their life outside of school and family, there are several excuses that can justify the late submission of an assignment.

Attention Getter: A famous author by the name of Wayne Dyer once said, “Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is incredibly heavy.”(1) In todays society it seems as if procrastination has become a normal and acceptable thing to do. It is often joked about amongst schoolmates and co-workers around the world. Nothing seems to get done until it absolutely needs to get done, then everyone runs around getting things done quickly and often times inaccurately. The trouble with this mentality however is that some things will never get done because something will come up tomorrow or the next day and what you are putting off now gets pushed even further back. Today I will persuade you to stop this habit from continuing. I will be explaining the problems we face when dealing with procrastination as well as how to deal with it and actions you can take to prevent it in the future.

Reported associations between procrastination and self-regulation – the determination of an individual to modify thoughts, opinions, desires and tasks in order to achieve personally applicable ambitions – have shown that procrastination is an illustration low self-regulation (Steel, 2007; cited in Korese, et al. 2016). Korese, et al. 2016, were the first to investigate and establish a relationship between self-regulation – as a trait – and bedtime procrastination, in a self-reported online questionnaire and survey. It was found that low self-regulation is capable of being a conceivable explanation for going to bed later than anticipated, as individuals with low self-regulation skills are habitually more sensitive to interferences or enticements within the external environment (Korese, et al., 2016). However, no casual relationship

Deferring a task such as writing a paper does not necessarily mean a student's paper will turn out negatively. However, it also does not help a student to procrastinate because students builded up exceeding amounts of stress. According to, “Longitudinal Study Of Procrastination, Performance, Stress, and Health:The Costs and Benefits of Dawdling,” this study suggest that,“Even if the estimated time to do a paper is accurate, the student may perform worse because of unforeseen delays or

All humans tend to procrastinate on any kind of work that requires significant effort. It is human nature and sometimes even the most organized person cannot avoid it. Putting things off until near the deadline is very much a good thing according to John M. Shanahan who once said, “Deadlines are the mother of all invention.” Shanahan is one-hundred percent correct in saying this. Deadlines for work eliminate the problem of procrastination and help the human brain become active and creative.

The study used the General Procrastination Scale (GPS) in order to measure procrastination among participants. The

According to Semb, Glick and Spencer (1979), the level of procrastination increases as an individual stays longer in universities. It was stated by Ellis and Knaus (1977) that approximately, over 70% of college students engage in this activity. Undergraduates tend to start papers during the last minute; they fail to prioritize what should be accomplished first, and as a result, their academic performance is greatly affected. A detrimental effect on their studies leads to having poor grades and eventually, failure in class (Semb, et.al., 1979).

Participants were asked to complete 3 rating scales for each of the 6 tasks on the procrastination assessment scale (PAS) and the multidimensional perfectionism scale (MPS) that was administered to them. Two major findings were found from this study. Socially prescribed perfectionism was observed to relate significantly with an overall academic procrastination. Secondly, found that self-orientated perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism result from fear of failure. The findings from this study suggest that procrastination is less dependent on the interpersonal context than that on the social context. People who get upset about what they do isn’t perfect, usually are driven more by fear of failure then by a need of accomplishing or completing something

“A Dictionary of the English Language” written by Dr. Samuel Johnson, defined procrastination as “delay.” This common issue mostly around everyone. Many people struggle with deadlines every day. It is one of the largest problems seen in college counseling centers. (Grohol, Psy.D.)

Another factor that causes procrastination is fear. Fear is a very powerful emotion. Whenever someone is faced with a difficult task, they can become overran by the fear of not being able to complete it. People who succumb to this are setting themselves up for failure. Whenever someone feels as if they are going to fail, they tend to postpone the task for as long as possible. This means that they often try to avoid the task all together until completion is absolutely necessary. In doing so, the number of tasks that need to be done increases. However, the time required to complete them does not.

Procrastinating is a minor reinforcer and provides immediate reinforcement. It has negative short-term consequences e.g. stress, regret, academic failure and fatigue. The benefits attained from are

When I first started my research I had the following question (1) Why do we procrastinate? (2) Is there a psychological reason or reasons to why we procrastinate? (3) In which circumstances is right to procrastinate? (4) Why do creative thinkers think that it is good to procrastinate? Now after I have done some reading, I have found answers for these questions. Furthermore, this research has open my eyes to a new perspective of how to overcome procrastination. Also, I have found that this topic is more broad than what I expected, which helped me understand more in deep the severity of the problem.

Have you ever had an essay due in three weeks and thought to yourself, “I’ve got time. I’ll just do it later”? Does staying up studying for an exam until 3 am in the morning sound familiar? How about running to class because you were working on a project until the very last second? If any of these unfortunate situations sound relatively familiar, you have endured the horrendous event of procrastination at some point of your jam-packed life. The one secret that nobody is enforcing on your young life is the extreme power of time management. In Chapter 5, the topics we address are as follows: