Procrastination In The United States

Learning about procrastination can help those students to take the fist step, accept they procrastinate and take action right away toward getting rid of this bad habit. This way those students procrastinate would stress less, get better grades and enjoy more the college experience.

“Everyone procrastinates sometimes, but 20 percent of people chronically avoid difficult tasks and deliberately look for distractions—which, unfortunately, are increasingly available”

A great deal of students don’t develop effective study habits and this ultimately results in feeling a decreased sense of self-esteem, stress, disorganisation, poor academic success, and a negative sense of self-efficacy which is linked to poor self-control (Pychyl & Dann, 2010). This is primarily caused by procrastinating. Procrastination is delaying an activity that possesses important benefits for us in the long-term but is voluntarily delayed in the short-term because of short-term impulsive temptations which offer greater immediate rewards (Steel, 2007). I chose to modify this problematic target behaviour because it was where I exercised poor self-control.

A vast majority of High School seniors as well as college freshmen, struggle with managing their time and reducing procrastination. High school seniors and college freshmen, unfortunately, have urgencies to do assignments really late and end up turning in a lethargic assignment. Many students incriminate procrastination. However, they only have themselves to blame for lack of time management. Students get absorbed in technology and spending time with friends they forget they even had an assignment due the very next day at the beginning of class. High school seniors and college freshmen need to learn how the importance of managing their time wisely and reducing procrastination can help them succeed in their educational careers.

Steel (2007) defines procrastination as voluntarily delaying action despite worry of consequences and without external reasons for waiting. In contrast, delay is procrastination without considering consequences (Corkin, et al., 2011). Out of necessity, procrastination research has focused on out-of-class assignments that have specific due dates. Researchers could then examine student performance and their perceptions in relation to when the assignment was due.

We’ve all had a paper due on a Wednesday that we had known about for the past two weeks, but for some unknown and involuntary reason, we choose to save it for a Tuesday evening, which turns into a Wednesday morning as we frantically work to finish an assignment we probably could have finished in class over a couple of days. We may have been preoccupied those couple of weeks, with a job, or sports; maybe even putting together a fundraiser of some sort. Or maybe, we haven’t been busy at all, and have chosen to go home after class and eat rice- cakes and watch Netflix all afternoon, into the evening, and continuously tell ourselves “I’ll get it done tomorrow.” Many of us have a habit of making nearly every important task, (whether it be homework, paying a bill, making a phone call, or even booking a trip) an “oh, I’ll do that tomorrow” type of job. What most of us realize, but choose to ignore, is that continuously putting of these duties of ours will not only have negative consequences on the result of the job that needs to be done, but on our mental physical and mental health as well. People may have excuses for leaving things to the last minute, but the hard truth that they need to accept is that they are a habitual procrastinator. It is imperative that we understand that procrastination will (eventually, if not immediately) have effects on our lives, from downward spirals in our happiness and personal satisfaction, to destroying our

None of these types pertain to being lazy but in Ana Swanson’s Washington Post article “The real reason you Procrastinate” she mentions how “for many people, procrastination are a strong and mysterious force that keeps them from completing the most urgent and important tasks in their lives” (Swanson 2). This concept can be extremely relatable among many college students, since they are introduced to a whole new environment and way of life that they must learn to adapt and tackle head on. For example, John Tierney, a New York Times author explains that students spend about a third of the day procrastinating and particularly young men (Tierney 1). The act of procrastinating may seem like an unstoppable force placed on earth, but they are ways around a habit. Many would pay their values to the habit, actually calling procrastination “helpful”. But while this could be true, we are talking about the majority rather the minority of people who actually enjoy procrastinating.

Why would people procrastinate? , According to some writer: ‘Twenty percent of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators. For them procrastination is a lifestyle, albeit a maladaptive one. And it cuts across all domains of their life’ (Groundwork for College Reading, 2013). Most

Procrastination is a common problem for teenagers and adults alike. In business, it can lead to major problems. Whether you put off a meeting or delay a product release, your procrastination can quickly spiral out of control. As a small business owner, procrastinate is your worst enemy. You are the most important employee at your company, so you have to find solutions instead of putting them off for tomorrow.

Procrastination is defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary as putting off intentionally or habitually the doing of something that should be done. Procrastination is known as the most common source of motivational failures among most of all of the population. Academic procrastination is defined as a student who, lacking poor time management skills and feeling stress, chooses to put off work or studying that needs doing, and the purposive delay of academic tasks that must be completed. Procrastination, or the intentional delay of due tasks, is a widespread phenomenon in college settings. Because procrastination can negatively impact learning, achievement, academic self-efficacy, and quality of life, research by Bin-Bin Chen’ and Wen Hen from the Department of Psychology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China has sought to understand the factors that produce and maintain this troublesome behavior that is quite popular within the adolescent years. Within the framework of the ecological model of resiliency, this study examined how ecological assets were related to academic procrastination among adolescents.

It is not uncommon to find a college student that is procrastinating, and avoiding work that needs to be finished. When these students are procrastinating they are doing a variety of unrelated activities, such as playing video games or watching videos. Lauren Hensley’s research found three major themes about procrastination: a student feels they work better under pressure so they give themselves less time to complete the task, they learned from prior experience

Procrastination is often a characteristic of the college student community. Procrastination could be described as putting off obligations regarding school work, home activities or even social life. Many students do it, which can become problematic. Not studying for a test, putting off homework or foregoing cleaning the house can lead to extra stress that stims from procrastination. Kate Blackwell, a college student attending South Eastern University finds herself procrastinating often. She realizes that she procrastinates when she feels overwhelmed by school work and outside activities. Kate tends to put off the activities that she does not enjoy doing. For instance, she will make plans with friends rather than studying for a test even though she knows she going to regret it later (Blackwell).

It is undeniable that most students include university students have the habit of procrastination mostly in their homework, reports and assignments. They usually like to delay their works and do them last minutes. Beswick and Mann (1994) state that procrastination is the action of delaying the beginning or completing an intended course. Ferrari and Pychyl (2008) state that the habit of procrastination brings a lot of negative effects to the students, such as low achievement of students or increase their physical and psychological problems. There are three reasons that cause procrastination among the university students, which are distractions, difficulty in regulating emotions and lack of motivation.

Upon further review, it appears that what I thought was a problem is more of an issue. As well as I needed to add a problem to my previous essay, so I would like to list a problem I have with procrastination. I seem to be dealing with increased instances where I have waited to the last minute to complete homework or a work project. Investigating my problem of procrastination, I will consider the pros and cons of not getting my schoolwork completed, in a timely manner. The pros outweigh the cons by a long shot. It is never a good idea to waste time and then rush through just to complete an assignment.

Piers Steel (2007) described it best when he stated that to procrastinate is to voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay. Procrastination is a universally experienced action to which many people can relate. There are many different facets of life where people find reasons to delay and postpone actions and tasks, whether it is academically, in the workplace or in personal life. The statistical data is steep and demonstrates how serious the problem of procrastination is for so many individuals both within and outside the academic world. Piers Steel (2007) stated that 80-95% of college students engage in procrastination. Many studies have shown how procrastination in students results in lower grades and well-being. Tice and Baumeister (1997) reported that university students who rated high on procrastination not only received low grades but also reported a high level of stress along with poor self-rated health (Choi and Chu, 2005). Over 80% of Americans put off funding a personal retirement plan for the future (Byrne, et al., 2006; O’Donoghue & Rabin, 1999; Venti, 2006, as cited by Ferrari, Ngyen & Steel, 2013). Additionally, 25% of the adult population identify with being a procrastinator and state that it is a defining personality trait (Ferrari, et al., 2007; Steel, 2007, as cited by Ferrari, Ngyen & Steel, 2013). The percentage of people who have identified with procrastination quadrupled between 1978 and 2002