If you’re anything like me, you leave everything to the last minute. Why? No one knows. I just feel like I can get whatever I need to do finished no matter how much time I have left. Packing for a trip? I’ll do it a few hours before. Homework? I’ll start it the night before. Always. Any sort of cleaning task? This one I hate about myself, but I won’t clean up something until it has already reached a disastrous level.
With all of this said, I’m not proud to say that my procrastination got even worse when I moved to college. Whatever I experienced in high school, I now had to endure, but worse. I didn’t have my parents always reminding me to do what I had to. I would need to see my room in complete disarray before I attempted to clean it, I would lag my laundry until I was on the last pair of underwear, and my homework would be done less than 12 hours before it was due every time.
College procrastination is a funny thing, actually. At one point, you find yourself doing work for one class to procrastinate doing work for another class. I call that one "productive procrastination." Later on, every college student finds themselves re-wearing clothes or going out in only what they have left because they were too lazy to do laundry that week. Everyone is guilty of this. Don’t even begin to lie and say you haven’t smelled a piece of clothing in your laundry basket, thought to yourself, “Eh, doesn’t smell that bad”, and then put it on.
I just won’t believe it.
On top of all the personal distractions, social distractions are always there. You now are surrounded by thousands of people your age with similar interests and habits. While at home, you were limited to your friends and the hometown culture; in college, you’re immersed in a diverse world where there is always something new to discover, or something new to distract yourself with.
I did hit a breakthrough. Once. One week during second semester, I decided to do all of my homework either early or directly after it was assigned instead of right before it was due. This was probably one of the best weeks of my entire year, because I had so much more time. Usually, I would look at the work on my desk, laugh, then go on YouTube or leave to one of my friends’ rooms. For this one week, I brought back my work, finished it as quick as I could, and had so much more time to enjoy doing whatever I pleased without worrying. Free time had a new meaning for me, and all of my last-minute anxiety that I wouldn’t finish in time disappeared.
Even though this week showed me how much better my life could be if I just did all of my work on time, I immediately reverted to my old ways directly after. Procrastination could be beat, I promise you that, but it is a difficult task for those of us who suffer with it.
