"Procrastination is like a credit card: it's a lot of fun until you get the bill." -Christopher Parker

If you are reading this article there is a good chance you often procrastinate in school or fall behind in classes, just being a hazard to yourself in general. If that is you, I get you. I feel it, being your own worst enemy is not easy.

There is little sympathy to go around for those of us who subscribe to these bad habits on a regular basis, and for good reason. Organized people have little time or patience to wait for us "laggers" to catch up and keep up, and they have good reason to believe we will not "keep up" for very long before falling behind again. This can hurt our relationships with friends, family, coworker, supervisors, professors, and anyone our lack of timeliness affects.

While you want to do right by these people in your life and not upset, annoy, or disrespect them in any way--what they don't see is that procrastination is an internal problem, not a purposeful insult towards them. Either way, falling behind makes people lose trust in your word and your abilities. So why do we still do this? The answer is not simple, its a process, and it involves understanding the difference between procrastination and falling behind, which are used as synonyms when in fact they are very different in practice.

Procrastination can happen for many reasons, and often can be more than one reason. Although it is usually blamed on overt laziness, that is usually not the only factor involved. Getting sick and missing some time in school, having a job during the semester, being involved in extracurricular clubs, and a dash of laziness can add up and have snowball effect that seems too large to tackle.

Once your in college there is no one holding your hand anymore, you pay for your mistakes with bad grades, anxiety, and the ridiculous tuition bills. The pressure to have good enough grades to have financial aid, to graduate on time, be involved on campus, do internships, support your lifestyle with a job, have a social life, visit home and still have a good GPA upon graduation can cause plenty of anxiety. "You can't afford to make mistakes" says your bank account. You cant afford school forever, but so many things compete to be your priority.

However, we get excited. Every semester you plan to hit the ground running, take your fresh start and make the best of it. Unfortunately it is much too easy to say to yourself "I need to enjoy my college years", so you go to that party. Its too easy to say to yourself "Ill do it tomorrow", and tomorrow brings nothing but more distractions. Its too easy to say to yourself "I can just do that the night before it's due, I don't want to miss out on what is happening today". Our excuses, however, momentarily justify our poor prioritization.

The procrastination process is explained very well by Tim Urban in a Ted Talk called "Inside the mind of a master procrastinator" (2016).

This lecture has many wonderful insights about how the process of waiting until the last minute can be difficult to avoid, and is in competition with our instincts to just have fun and avoid the hard things. However, I disagree with Tim Urban's Ted Talk on one important point, I don't think that rationalization and instant gratification are the two main things at war in our heads when it comes to productivity (or lack thereof). In fact, what I have learned from my time in college (as a super senior now) is that you can rationalize anything if you want it bad enough. Being rational and logical seems like the perfect solution to the procrastination and falling behind issue, but we rationalize bad decisions every day. "I deserve to take a nap because I got one of the things on my list done, rewarding myself is essential". "I should go out drinking with my friends tonight (assuming you are all 21+) even though I have homework I could be doing because they will just spam snap me anyway, I'll just do my work tomorrow". "I need to clean my room before studying, I just can't work in this environment". Although this rationale is not solid, definitely there are BETTER rationales, it's enough for us to act upon. As soon as we can feel slightly logical about our poor decision, we give ourselves permission to pursue the instant gratification,convincing yourself that this decision then lies in the overlapping grounds of fun and responsible like Urban mentions.

We go into denial. "I work better under pressure anyway, besides, I'm not that far behind". While pressure does help some, it also causes anxiety and is a slippery slope to falling behind. We procrastinate a little longer in this phase, dreading addressing the snowball we know is building and that we will eventually get crushed by, or that we will have to fight to stop. This means facing all the small mistakes we have made in the semester so far, this means addressing all the lost opportunities for points or progress, this means momentarily being really angry or disappointed with ourselves--so we avoid it until something snaps us out of it.

Now, while Urban discusses how a deadline for tasks will bring out your sense of urgency at some point or another, this is not necessarily true. If you have ever been really sick, going through a breakup, or have a severe case of "senioritis" you may be more than willing to turn in an assignment late if it means that you can do better quality work. You can rationalize this and say that having better quality work will gain more points overall, despite it being late. While this may be true for one assignment or another, it starts a bad precedent. Soon this habit will make you fall behind even faster, soon the only assignments you panic about are the ones that have a "no late work accepted" policy. The late work, current work, and upcoming work pile up until you feel that you are in danger of a really bad grade or failing the course altogether.
This may be where the line is drawn between procrastinating and falling behind. Procrastinating means waiting until the last minute to complete or even start the task, but it is assumed that the task is still completed on time despite any lack of quality or competency. Falling behind, however, means that you are falling short of your expectations or responsibilities, it means that you fail to do something and fall behind in progress in comparison to your colleges. Procrastination means you are still making progress, just in short and stressful bursts, but falling behind is when progress in jeopardy altogether. Falling behind means you will need more than just panic to motivate you because finding the motivation to catch up is harder than finding the motivation to simply keep up. It's the difference between dodging consequences last minute and trying to crawl out from underneath all the consequences already crushing you.

We may accept how screwed we are and begin to try to organize our situation. When a teacher emails you about your late work, you start missing class or showing up late because you're staying up too late to study, and the real hard part of the semester actually sets in, we see how bad our situation actually is. There is no looking away anymore. Falling behind will result in having to cut your losses and just try to do what you can from this point forward, knowing that you would have been way happier if you didn't do this to yourself again.

We get overwhelmed very quickly once we organize and take in the reality of the situation we created and may feel paralyzed with stress. Now there is too much built up work, the to-do list is stressful to even look at, god forbid we open all the emails that just give us even more to do. Just thinking about an assignment is stressful so you may find yourself avoiding it and getting lost in "worst case scenario" thoughts or already feeling defeated.

Hopefully you reach a point of panic instead of holding your feelings of defeat. Panic can paralyze or energize. Just like the panic monster that Urban mentions, the panic of thinking about what will happen if you don't pull yourself together can be your only saving grace. This sense of urgency that you couldn't find until now is going to energize you to do everything you can to save your grades, you begin to cut out all distractions in your life and finally start to get less behind (never ahead though). Why couldn't you care more a little sooner?

Newton's law of momentum could be an explanation. This law basically states that an object in motion tends to stay in motion and an object at rest tends to stay at rest until a force equal or greater becomes involved to change that state. This works with people's productivity too, the longer you are at rest and not keeping up with classes the greater of force it will take to get you moving, but if you are moving and working it will be hard to stop and slow down. This is why a balance between fun and responsibility can be difficult, we are creatures of habit, and want to be on autopilot instead of constantly switching between resting and working.

Once you fall behind, it can be discouraging to try and catch up. These are the best things I have found by researching or have discovered on my own that could help get you unstuck:

1. Push through the difficult start-up energy that it takes to just begin, once you start, it gets easier.

2. Create a routine. Specific times of the day that you work on assignments as well as specific times you allow yourself time for fun.

3. Cut out all the prerequisites to your productivity. You don't need to check your email, go to the bathroom, clean your room, have coffee, or even put pants on before starting your homework. Just start it. Once have begun the assignment you can walk away for coffee or a bathroom break, but it will be so much easier to dive right back into the assignment once you return.

4. Stop trying to make your work fun if you are behind, it means you are still exposing yourself to the temptation of fun in that moment. Stop doing study sessions with friends if they distract you easily. You may think this sounds like a good compromise between obligation and a social life but often it just makes the work take longer and be less comprehensive because of the constant conversation interruptions and mental side tracks you go on every time you and your besties start chatting. This mental back and forth can really hurt your ability to focus on the task at hand, and often makes it seem more painful because you rather just say screw it and all go to Taco Bell together. You deserve it right?

5. Don't stop at the end of each task. Keep your momentum going and begin the next task immediately, even if you know you will have to take a break soon for food or sleep or work. It is better to come back to a half-finished task than one you never started.

6. Leave your work out. I have found that if I leave my textbook open to the chapter for the week, my notebook next to it, and my planner in plain sight, I am much more willing to just sit down and dive right in.

7. Capitalize on the pockets of time you have between obligations. Have an hour between classes, two hours before it's time for work? Instead of napping, going out for food with friends, or watching YouTube videos for an hour-- just do an hour of work. By using all these little pockets of time that you are just waiting for your next obligation, you can cut down the painfulness of a project because you ate it in smaller bites.

I am currently trying to catch up on my schoolwork as I write this article. I am a hypocrite because I am a huge procrastinator myself, but it takes one to know one. Maybe it takes one to know what one should do to get unstuck as well. These tips have always helped me get myself unstuck, hopefully, they can help my fellow procrastinators out there as well!

Remember this is just if you are trying to catch up, you could get work done and be more laid back if time is not of the essence. Don't get discouraged if you fall behind, find your momentum and keep it going, you can do this!

References:

Leibow, David, M.D. "The Semester Is Only Two Weeks Old and You're Already Behind." Psychology Today. N.p., 22 Sept. 2010. Web. 05 Nov. 2016.

Parker, Christopher. "Procrastination Quotes." Brainy Quote. Accessed 5 Nov. 2016.

Urban, Tim. "Inside the mind of a master procrastinator." TedTalks, 6 Apr. 2016. Accessed 5 Nov. 2016.