The Negative Effect of Procrastination on College Students

High schoolers are known to be overwhelmed and pressured by schoolwork, parents, sports, and extracurricular activities. We spend seven hours a day at school, proceed to do 3.5 hours of homework on average, and many of us end the day with sports practices. With crammed schedules it is no surprise that many of us decide to put certain assignments off until the very last minute. I am (not) proud to say that I am part of an exclusive procrastination club that operates 24/7. Through my secondary school years I have grown to be more independent; however, this came at a great consequence of having to constantly remind myself to have a strong sense of motivation and stay on top of assignments. Although procrastination may not be a trait many wish to have, I believe it is a fine art and when handled correctly, can still lead to success.

What I didn't realize at the time was that procrastinating on my assignments not only made me feel more stressed as time went on, but it also caused me to rush through the writing process, resulting in sloppy workmanship.

College students have to balance work, family, and college activists and any delaying behavior from within can cause an unbalance. This behavior is called procrastinating and it can lead to problems in many areas of a student’s life. College students are the worst hit by this type of behavior because they have many different activities to focus on instead of studying. These activities can cause students to study when they have time which often is usually too short amount of time. There is a time and place to relax and enjoy life, but if students focus on playing around instead of getting their assignments done, college life will be stressful.

With many distractions around us, students across the nation struggle with procrastination daily and it is on an upper spiral. Both men and women students are struggling with putting things off such as work, school, and tasks at home or in their dorms. Unfortunately, 20 percent of males and females are labeled as chronic procrastinators in the United States (Ferrari). Those who are known as “procrastinators” are not born this way, however, their upbringing is what creates this habit. Parents that have high expectations counteract the want to complete tasks among young adults. This is because demanding parents prevent children’s ability of development that allows them to regulate responsibilities (Marano). On the other hand, there are several different types of procrastination according to J. Ferrari, Ph.D. One type is known as the arousal type; this includes people who wait to do homework or tasks until the last minute because they enjoy working quickly under pressure.

Another group of students I talked to said that the main reason they procrastinate so much is because they find better things to do with their time, so they think. They get distracted easily by social media or events on campus or by their friends and they say they will do the assignment later, before they know it its an hour before the paper is due and they are rushing to get it done and turn it in—resulting in a lower grade than they could have gotten had they started it a few days before. These students realize they need to change, and they say they will do better after every one but in reality they do not. They continue getting distractions instead of being separated from their friends for enough time to do the assignment well. These same students, who were all three grouped up together eating lunch, also said that it does not help them that the teachers give them set prompts rather than free writing. So, five out of the twelve people that I surveyed agreed that free writing would help them succeed more than prompt writing.

Been a procrastinator can have side effects, for example anxiety, stress, and tension. Personally, I believe that students go more through this side effects because they are always being bombarded with due dates before the semester has even started. As reported by, Erin Ben- Moche from the Chicago Tribune newspaper, “Teens report that their stress level during the school year far exceeds what they believe to be healthy (5.8 versus 3.9 on a 10-point scale) and tops adults’ average reported stress levels (5.8 for teens versus 5.1 for adults)” (Erin Ben-Moche, 2017, par.3) In other words, Erin believes that teen students stress more than adults because of school. As a student, I personally haven’t dealt with this kind of high stress, but in the other hand, I met teenagers who have dealt with this kind of stress during mid-terms

Have you found yourself putting import duties off or postponing them over and over? Procrastination nowadays has become a universal problem, and it is tough to consider that some people may say that they do not procrastinate. This universal problem exists more among college students (Wolters, 2003). It is estimated that 95% of college students in the United States have reported that they have suffered from procrastination (Chow, 2009). Professors’ dispute that students procrastinate more often and generally when there is a term paper to be turned in, rather than when doing assignments or having to study for exams. Steel (2007) defined academic procrastination as the inclination to wait or reschedule doing academic responsibilities. Steel mentioned that by postponing tasks, procrastinators will go through some emotional difficulties; stress, anxiety, and depression. There are many studies that show that procrastination has a destructive collision on student’s educational performance (Moon and Illingworth, 2005). Procrastination is also linked to other bad performance and outcomes consist of bad study habits, exam anxiety, fear of failure, lower grades, sense of guilt, poor time management, and communication skills (Lee, 2005). Procrastination is a serious matter in college and universities and how studies show that it is also affects student’s health I strongly believe that by having self-regulation and following some steps it will improve student’s academic

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to procrastinate is “to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done.” Another way of putting it is “to wait until the last minute.” Procrastination is a very bad habit. Even though

“I have a ton of homework to do, but let’s go hang out anyways!” This is an example of procrastination. Procrastinating is an action of delaying or postponing something. The problems of procrastinating effects a lot of students in college and can sometimes keep them from receiving better grades on their assignments. Procrastination affects around 90 percent of college students. (qtd in Hubbard) Procrastinating occurs when students feel lack of motivation, not having accountability for their “extra work,” or just not understanding the assignment. Many college students are under ton of stress and tend to delay working on assignments to ease the stress. This habit results in procrastination. Procrastination affects many people, so how do we

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

In college, have you ever waited until the last minute to sit down and pull an all-nighter to finish a paper? Well if you did and you did it multiple times you were basically considered a procrastinator. Procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something like an assignment. Many college students like to have fun until they realize that they have a paper due in the next twenty-four hours. They hurry back to their computers and count down the hours until the due date expires. According to this article The 4 Main Causes of Procrastination Revealed, there are four main reason why procrastination takes place. Number one reason is the Fear of Failure. Deep down if one fears the consequences of failing they often put it off or just decline to do the action. Second main reason is Extensive Perfectionism. Per the Motivation Grid, “If you are a self-confessed perfectionist, then you might find it difficult to take action unless you know you can do a job with which you will be totally satisfied.” The last two reasons are what are considered the obvious reasons of procrastination. Third and fourth reasons is that one has lack of focus and no energy levels at all. The question is, does working on a paper the last minute (procrastination) drastically affect a college student’s grades?

Procrastination is one of the frequently practiced counterproductive behaviors of people or wasteful management practices of individuals (Ariely, D. and Wertenbroch, K. 2002).Procrastination means the delaying of work necessary to reach a goal, http://www.procrastinus.com. Procrastination is to put off doing something (The American Heritage Dictionary). As Beswick & Mann (1994) pointed out, it is a delaying of the beginning or the completing of a task of an organization. Procrastination is unreasonable task delaying behavior (Sabini & Silver, 1982). Procrastination may be put off work on a specific task, or the recurring tendency to put off tasks in general (Ariely, D. and Wertenbroch, K.

Procrastination is all too familiar to most of the people and it has become a widespread phenomenon at all ages of life. In childhood, children will make every effort to put off finishing their homework. When they grow up into adults, they start to delay writing up their thesis, repeatedly declare they will start their diets tomorrow, or postpone until deadlines finishing the tasks. Yet people also sometimes struggle to control their procrastination. But things always go against with what they want. This essay revolves around the definition and the negative effects of procrastination, reasons for procrastination behaviors and the effective solution to procrastination behaviors.

I had a month to finish my research paper. It was a long-term assignment, so I didn’t have to start doing it right away. Surprisingly, I put it off for 26 days and now I only had 4 days to finish it. Knowing the due date was near; I jumped up on my table and started to write. Unfortunately, I couldn’t believe that picking up a tiny topic for my paper was a challenging task for me. Then, I decided to shift it into another day. 3 days left. It was Saturday, so I had to go to work and came home late at night, too tired to use my brain for anything. Consequently, I ended my day with a box of pizza and my favorite show on TV. 2 days left. “Hey, today is Sunday and I deserve a day of rest after a hard working week.” 1 day left. I had 2 classes today and came back home late again, so I had to fill my stomach up before starting my paper because nobody can work well with an empty stomach. Finally, I had to spend all night for picking a topic, finding information and writing six pages about procrastination. Since I commit that I am a procrastinator, I want to know more about procrastination. Plus, I want to understand how procrastination can push me far away from achieving my goals as well as its negative effects; I decided to make a research about it. And my question was “What is procrastination?” I already knew that almost everyone, especially are college students have procrastinated at least once in their college lifetime. We either kept on pushing our homework, projects and

This is confirmed by the observation by (Ferrari and Beck, 1998) that over 70% of college students engaged in frequent academic procrastination, most commonly with writing term papers. Procrastination is probably the single most common time management problem (Learning Common Fastfacts Series, 2004). One basic thing about procrastination is that everyone procrastinates to some extent. However, some reasons can be put forward why university students rank highly among those mostly vulnerable to procrastination (Learning Commons Fastfacts Series, 2004). The reasons according to this group are: (i) there is always a tremendous amount of work to do. Regardless of how much time the students spend studying, it can seem impossible to get finished; (ii) for most students, only a few hours each day are spent in class and labs. The majority of time is unstructured, and students are responsible for deciding what to do and when to do it; and (iii) in the university environment, particularly in residence, there is usually something more enjoyable to do than studying. Many activities compete for a limited number of hours in a week, and studying is often pushed to the bottom of the list. It also recognized that many mathematics students refer to the subjects as being difficult. And the (Learning Commons Fastfacts Series, 2004) have already asserts that procrastination often results