The Causes Of Procrastination

I found I’m not alone according to two leading experts on procrastination, Joseph Ferrari, professor of psychology at DePaul University and Timothy Phikul, professor of psychology at Carleton University 20% of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators and up to 70 percent of students in one study said that they procrastinate. This habit affects so many and it one of the most difficult tendencies to kick but fortunately there are ways to go about solving the issue so today I would like to inform you all about why people procrastinate and the effects it can have and also ways to overcome it.

The two articles, 'The Procrastination Doom Loop- And How to Break It' and 'This Was Supposed To Be My Column For New Years' both provide much information about procrastination. One example is that it has more to do with emotion than time. In the article, written by Derek Thompson, he talks about how each of us recognizes it is important to go to the dentist, but still put it off. We look away from this because the pain is too upfront and the rewards are too small. Another example is having nothing to distract you and everything ready to go, but not writing an email back because you don't feel like it. Procrastination can be an effective tool for getting things done.

     Procrastination is something that you don’t naturally have an innate ability to do. It is often brought on by finding ways

Procrastination is ignoring your responsibilities and avoiding them for no good reason. Experiencing procrastination can have a positive or negative reaction according to the amount of the behavior. The person that is procrastinating must first realize that they have a problem in order to find ways to overcome procrastination because they are putting their health, family and job at risk. Twenty percent of people realize they are procrastinators which in the end becomes a lifestyle. There are various reasons why people procrastinate.

There is a certain irony with procrastination, things we put off doing accumulate to the point of in manageability and feelings of anxiety increase which, is why we procrastinate anyway.

Question being, why do people procrastinate? There are many different views on procrastination. Some people say it occurs because of laziness while others believe it being from “ indecision and perfectionism.” (Warren n.p.). Author, Tim Urban, of “Why Procrastinators Procrastinate” perceives procrastination as being a ‘gratification monkey in the human brain . Urban says the monkey “thinks only about the present, ignoring lessons from the past and disregarding the future altogether.” (Urban 2). Procrastination leads people in different directions aside from one’s original focal point. Urban adds “the procrastinator finds himself spending a lot of time in a place called the Dark Playground,” (Urban 2). The Dark Playground is a place in the human mind where leisure activities are not supposed to occur, but occur regardless of one’s decision and liking. The Urban adds that the fun one has while in the Dark Playground is not actually considered fun, reason being it is not actually considered fun, reason being it is not honorary; resulting in dread, guilt, anxiety, self-hatred, and fear. (Urban 2). That include’s the general understanding and reasoning behind why one procrastinates, but what does procrastination have to do with fear? Why do people fear failure and loneliness? Based off of personal experiences, failure and loneliness

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.

Procrastination is a tendency to postpone, put off, delay, reschedule, take a rain check on, put on ice, hold off, or to defer what is necessary to reach a particular goal.(Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition. Philip Lief Group 2009.) While attending College some students find it hard to juggle work, family, and friends. Leading most students down a dangerous path to procrastination; that negative impact affect students from their physical health, mental health, and social health.

Procrastination is the act or habit of putting tasks on hold. It is the unnecessary postponement of starting or finishing an undertaking, which eventually leads to distress (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984). The intentional delay of due tasks is very common among students and lately, it has become prevalent in college settings (Rabin, Fogel & Nutter-Upham, 2011).

“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.)

According to dictionary.com, the meaning of procrastination is “the act or habit of procrastinating, or putting off or delaying, especially something requiring immediate attention”.

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.

“Procrastination is a common form of self-regulatory failure with substantive connections” where the tendency is to put off tasks. (Steel, Farrari, 2013)

In my study, laziness is the most common reason student procrastinate. Timothy A Pychyl, a professor who specializes in the study of procrastination says “procrastinators often remark that they lack the motivation necessary to act. They have an intention to act, but they fail to act in a timely fashion even though they recognize

An equally important cause for procrastinating could be the laziness one might have. For a college student, several amounts of homework could be assigned within the first week of school, but the professor might state that those specific assignments to that class will be due at the end of the semester. So, one would say to themselves that there is plenty of time not to worry, so the student kicks back and worries about other things. Once, the end of the semester comes the person could have forgotten about the assignment that was given in the beginning of their school year. Now, there is little time to get the tasks finished and turned in, while other teachers in other classes might have assigned homework for the same due date as the other professor. Of course, at this point, the student regrets the decision that he or she might have made to procrastinate until a couple of days before the due date, now the