I have procrastinated on nearly everything important in my life. Even simple tasks that take less than 10 minutes to complete. I always wait until I have no other choice but to do what I've been putting off. I find myself thinking that I have a long time to do something and then wait until the very last day to actually do it. I procrastinate on getting birthday presents for friends, getting things together for projects and I even procrastinated on writing this post.
I know that I am not the only one that has this bad habit. But I can say that it's almost impossible for me to start something ahead of time. I don't understand how people can be so organized with color coded planners and have every detail of their schedule taken care of weeks before something is due. Often when I know that there is something I need to do, I'll get ice cream instead of working on it, or take a nap. Then at 2 am I will be desperately writing a 6-page paper due the same day.
Despite how tired I always am from this and how much more stress it puts on me I have not changed my ways. Procrastination motivates me to work harder and get things done fast because I don't have any other time to waste.
In high school, I would skip classes just to get other work done that was due, or I would be doing work for one class in another one. For our senior exit project, I waited until the day I had to present to put together my presentation board. We had to have a portfolio with a research paper in it to give to the judges. This paper was supposed to be done weeks in advance, and I wrote it hours before I had to be in front of the judges.
I procrastinated on finding what college I wanted to attend. I often put things off that I don't want to think about until there is no time and I am forced to do something about it.
I find it funny that before I started college, my dad laughed and said: “Now that you're starting college it'll teach you to stop procrastinating." But I have procrastinated more in college than I ever have before. Whether I'm working on a project or just needing to do something simple, I always wait until the very last minute. Even on the day I was moving out of my dorm, I waited to start packing until 6 o'clock and I had to be out by 7.
I find it crazy when I'm sitting in class, and the professor is going over a project that has to be due in a week, and classmates are talking about having it already done. I wonder how they can complete something that is due so ahead of time.
Procrastination has become a way of life for me, and I can't imagine doing things any other way. I know that this habit is probably going to do me no good in the future, but for right now it works for me and helps me get things done because I know that there is a deadline I'm trying to meet.
