In high school, I was the average procrastinator. As I write this, I am thinking of how much I have been procrastinating on writing this procrastination article, which is quite ironic. So why wait any longer? Let's just jump right in!
You could be underestimating the difficulty of the task.
You're sitting in class and all of a sudden you hear the professor say that there is a project being assigned. Everyone sighs, but as he/she continues to explain you are thinking back to about a year or two ago in high school that you've done a project before like the one you've just been assigned. You're excited as you begin to think to yourself, "it took me just one or two days to complete last time. Why should this one take any longer than that?" Well little did you know when the time came when you started working on it, you never gave a thought that something could come up...
Something important could come up.
If you're ever wondering why the teachers give out a giant stack of handouts of with due dates to projects and assignments, it's because they're hoping that you give yourself plenty of time to complete task at hand. This is for in case you run into any trouble along the way, such as a family emergencies.
You blow off your chance for help from the Professor.
Professors typically want you to speak up during the class period that the project was assigned so if you have any questions, they want to know. This is so they can address them too if any of the other students have the same question later on as they work by themselves. Plus if you wait until a few days before when it's due, the professor may not be as willing to help you as you anticipated.
No one works well under time pressure.
Do you know anyone who says they like to work under pressure? Most people would say "no" for the mere fact they don't want to deal with the stress that comes along with it. Stress can be a trigger point of a lot of things in our lives and if you have a limit or a date of when it should be completed, you should start working right away.
You might not have time to polish up your work/You could run out of time
If you're not careful enough and don't paying attention to time, it usually comes sneaking right up behind you before you know it! So which means if you completed the project in time but you have about an hour and a half yet to proofread it...(going over say like an essay) it may take you some extra time to polish your work. And if you're not the fastest reader then it might take you even longer. So you're trying to hurry as fast as you can, then you realize that you have only 15 minutes left, you'll start to panic and you'll wish that you started sooner. You don't know what to do. Just take a second to breathe.
In conclusion, there is a time and a place to procrastinate, but if something pops up in the way it's usually when something important happens, such as a family emergency. But don't let the opportunity slip to be able to ask questions to your professor on the day that the project is being assigned. If you wait too long, you might not have time to polish up your work, or you could become stressed because no one likes to work under pressure.
