Whether it is leaving your clothes in the washer until someone else absolutely needs to do laundry or rushing to finish an ten page term paper that you started the night before it's due date, we've all procrastinated at one point during our college careers. If you are a chronic procrastinator like myself, then you may understand how hard it gets to actually complete an assignment. Sometimes, even merely convincing yourself to sit down somewhere to study becomes a challenge! However, once you have decided that you really need to get this assignment done, you begin to face other challenges that only make the level your procrastination increase. The struggle indeed becomes too real.
Below are 11 challenges every procrastinator faces as they try to get some studying done.
1. Where, oh where to study?
You'll find that one of the first struggles you encounter as a procrastinator is that there is almost never any space to do work the night before your assignment is due. This becomes even harder if you are aware of your level of procrastination, and you decide that every available space is "too loud", "too quiet", or too anything to actually get stuff done. Ask yourself: am i being nit-picky because I actually cannot work under certain fluorescent lights or because I am trying to further stall my studying?
2. To jam out, or not to jam out?
As much as we may hate to admit it, music will indeed distract us. Especially if we believe that every time "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift comes on we have to make an entire performance. As a procrastinator, you have to constantly tell yourself to stay focused and to not play, play, play, play, play...
3. Staring at random, blank spaces. Frequently.
There will always be that random patch of beige paint, that corner of white on your laptop screen, or any flat surface or wall that oddly catches your attention. As a result, you just stare at it for a LONG time.
You also end up...
4. Catching yourself deep in thought.
Do you ever just find yourself thinking about how exciting life would be if your medium-sized puppy were a full-grown lion? Or what those little things that float across your line of vision are (you know, those "floaties")? As a procrastinator, you'll end up spending more time pondering on life's most irrelevant questions than answering your paper's prompt.
5. Starting your work at the last minute. Literally.
As redundant as this may seem, one of the biggest struggles of a procrastinator is that we leave all our work to be completed at the last minute possible. We literally postpone all our work until we seriously cannot postpone any further. Even when we get started on our assignment, we postpone that even more by formatting our document, organizing our laptop's windows in order of relevant sources, or as previously mentioned, by choosing music or location. That problem set that was assigned last week is suddenly due in 9 hours, and in a panic, Barry Allen no longer is The Flash. Your panic drives you to be the fastest human alive.
Your panic and need to work super fast also drives you to...
6. Setting unrealistic expectations.
We expect to complete one week's worth of work (or more) in one night. As a result, we are coerced to transform from early birds to night owls, resorting to drinking so much coffee to stay up until 4 AM, or relying on very short naps every few hours to work until 6 AM. It's no biggie though. I mean, who needs sleep anyways?
7. Justifying your actions.
Procrastinators will pull every excuse possible to justify their last-minute actions. We are aware that we should not have postponed our lab write-up as much as we did, but we will refuse to accept that we procrastinated. "I was busy", "I was studying for another class", "I had a Quidditch game to attend", "I had to clean my bed, desk, and closet to ensure I work in a distraction-free environment". Never do we admit that we actually procrastinated because, frankly, we hate admitting that.
8. Hoping the work will do itself.
Obviously this would make everyone's lives easier, regardless of time planning for homework. As a procrastinator, there comes that time at around 2:37 AM in which you just want to throw your table over and pray that your pencil could pick itself up or your laptop keys could press themselves just so that the assignment gets done. Why can't there be an autocomplete spell?
9. Finding encouragement through random objects.
Whether it is a 15 minute nap, a slice of apple pie from your fridge, or allowing yourself to watch a viral video, these all motivate you to keep doing work. You find it so helpful to reward yourself after completing five problems, 30 minutes of reading, or a page and a half of writing with the simple things.
10. Everything bothers you.
Your chair gets too uncomfortable. Your stomach tells you its hungry. your eyes begin to droop. Your leg falls asleep. Your computer screen is too bright. Nothing satisfies you, but truthfully, you just want to stop doing everything and finish your homework later. Given that you can't really push your assignment later than late (I mean you can, you just might not want to), you deal with it. Annoyed, you deal with everything uncomfortable, and get your work done.
11. Telling yourself this is the last time you procrastinate.
"This is the last time I'm going to procrastinate for this class". We've all said. I say it about twice a week, actually. The point is we promise ourselves that we will no longer ever leave work until the night before it is due, but ultimately, procrastination repeats itself.
And there you have it. 11 struggles that every procrastinator encounters as they try to be productive.
PS. This listicle was written/submitted at the very last minute. No joke. #HellaMeta
