Procrastination really inhibits college students' ability to have a stress free life. It's something that can easily be prevented, but it still happens, unfortunately. Netflix, going to the gym, and intercourse with your girlfriend beats doing homework 99% of the time. The temptations of college are almost unfair to us.
There are certain stages of procrastination that lead to the inevitable result of getting nothing done. Here they are, precisely in this order:
1. Waking up early. Waking up early is not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to being a productive member of society. When I wake up early, which is a very rare occurrence, I do exactly what everyone does when they wake up early; I think about what I need to do the whole day. You would think this would be beneficial, but it really isn't. Planning out everything throughout the day makes it easy for someone to say, "Screw it, I'll be a stripper."
2. The nap. Since you woke up early, the time you scheduled for "diligent studying" turned into a long, dream-filled nap. Granted, you tried to study for all of 30 minutes, so that counts for something, right? Of course you feel great right after the nap is over, but this further discourages you as a college student because you have, once again, accomplished nothing.
3. The trip to Chipotle. It doesn't necessarily have to be Chipotle, but this is the go to for most of us college students. You haven't eaten anything all day because you were too busy going to class and then sleeping. You'll never eat a burrito slower until you're avoiding watching a lecture for your class.
4. Social media. So you finally pull out your laptop and have full intentions of studying. Then you realized you left your Facebook tab up from yesterday. So you scroll down your news feed until you realize you've gone back to April of 2013. This is when you switch to your phone and look through Instagram and Twitter, liking and commenting on everything possible in hopes that someone will respond and distract you even more.
5. Going out. Even though it is a week day, you're just hoping something is going on tonight so you can go a whole day, once again, without doing anything relevant to your studies. If something isn't going on, you text everyone asking to make something happen.
I am so guilty of all of these stages. The next day after all this happens is the day when everything is due, coincidentally. This day is different because you actually have obligations, like work, to do and no time to do all your work. It's no one else's fault besides your's because you had all day yesterday to do it. Don't worry, it happens to everyone.
