With its Netflix ridden intoxication and smooth pillow talking whisper, it gets me every time.
Most people experience some level of procrastination as they maneuver through life, though college in particular is a sweet spot. There are few things in life that I have become incredibly talented at, unfortunately, one of those is procrastination; the other is sleeping, but that's a story for another time.
A common misconception is that procrastinating is the brainchild of laziness, and while this may be true for some of us, for many, there are legitimate reasons to partake in the oh so familiar dance.
-By dance I mean, eat chipotle as you re-watch your favorite episode of How I Met Your Mother, all while mentally berating yourself, for adding yet another task to your already impressively long list of procrastinations. Yay! Mental health.
Procrastination can commonly manifest as a result of stress or anxiety; often both. Regardless of which you feel most accurately describes you, acknowledging or taking notice of the things that trigger your procrastination can help minimize the difficulty of getting things done.
Procrastination is common, especially during college, where we must hold ourselves accountable to the increasing amount of responsibilities. With responsibility comes its often-un-invited friend, stress, increasing our likelihood to procrastinate. If you spend all of your money drinking pumpkin spiced lattes, putting off paying your electricity bill, Edison will cut you off leaving you to shiver in the cold, cold, night in a smelly hoodie that you haven't washed because you also put off buying detergent; these things happen, or so I hear. The best thing we can do is pay attention to how we arrived at procrastination's doorstep and attempt to diverge from its path in the future.
-So, how do you conquer this ubiquitous habit? Face it head to head and give it a one-two in the gut.
If you are not Rocky Balboa, then one trick for combating procrastination that you can do right after you read this is to pick the easiest part of whatever task you are trying to accomplish and do that first. If you need to write an essay and have no clue what to begin saying, open up your computer and write anything that comes to mind about the topic you chose; an incomplete sentence, a phrase, a single word, all perfectly fine. Haven't chosen a topic? No sweat, go onto google and follow step one, let that be your first accomplishment for the paper; your beginning. Have a pile of laundry that you now use as a makeshift beanbag? put it all in a bag and throw it near the door. Do this with the intent of dedicating a small amount of time to getting started, not necessarily completing a task.
While starting something is in no way the same as completing something, it reduces the amount of discomfort that you need to face in that very moment, while also reducing the steps needed to successfully complete the overall task. The idea is that every bit counts, and the less you have left to do the easier it becomes to finish. Every step, regardless of how small, is a successful push towards making it feel less like trying to do jumping jacks in a pool of sweet, sweet, molasses.
Watching Netflix will always be more fun than writing an essay or doing laundry, unless you're into that kind of thing, but nothing beats watching Netflix knowing you have the free time to do so, without any of procrastination mean friends (negative emotions) in the back of your head.
You can't pay any of your bills with procrastination, So, pause your episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, pop open a word processor, and type anything!
To learn how to become more like Rocky Balboa and punch procrastination in the gut, read this.
For some help figuring out what might trigger your procrastination, read this.
