End procrastination early

A large stack of homework–one that you’re too stressed and overwhelmed to finish–sits unfinished by your side on a late Sunday night. Sound familiar?

Procrastination is something that almost every high school student has experienced. Postponing a paper until the night before it is due or beginning to study for a test in the period before it all qualify as forms of procrastination.

Several different factors influence the development of procrastination. First, the fear of failure, the belief that they are going to fail, causes students to withhold from completing the task at hand and, instead, further delay the task’s completion.

Second, the lack of self-discipline and persistency, the failure to enforce self-discipline upon oneself, lengthens the amount of time it takes to complete the assignment at hand significantly.

Last, perfectionism, the suffocating feeling that accompanies one reaching anything short of perfection, is a factor that detains one from completing the task.

By understanding what procrastination is, one can hopefully refrain from practicing it.

Procrastination occurs in the limbic system–a group of several brain structures that are involved in learning, emotion, memory and motivation.

When the limbic system is on automatic, controlling automatic responses in the body, procrastination has a higher likelihood of occurring. Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, and the author of The Procrastinator’s Digest: A Concise Guide to Solving the Procrastination, mentions that putting the limbic system in automatic translates to one selecting “immediate mood repair.”

Amy Spencer, a Los Angeles-based journalist and author of the article “The Science Behind Procrastination,” explains the psychological and scientific aspects of procrastination, describing the prefrontal cortex as “a newer and weaker portion of the brain [that allows] you to integrate information and make decisions.” When one doesn’t “kick [the prefrontal cortex] into gear,” Spencer continues, “the limbic system takes over.” With the limbic system subconsciously grasping control, “[one] gives in to what feels good—[one] procrastinates,” Spencer said.

Princeton University offers students advice on how to avoid procrastination. A method mentioned is the Swiss Cheese It method; “Breaking down big tasks into little ones is a good approach,” Princeton’s McGraw Center said. “A variation on this is devoting short chunks of time to a big task and doing as much as you can in that time with few expectations about what you will get done.”

Essentially, procrastination is a problem that a lot of people experience. Attempting to get rid of bad habits in the beginning of the school year will make one more efficient and facilitate the rest of the year significantly.