It’s February, and once again, the siren call of procrastination is sounding. We’ve made it through the push of January fairly unscathed; but as February descends with its cold weather (finally) and its lack of a school holiday, the motivation of students nationwide begins to plummet.
Some people claim that they work better “under pressure.” To a certain extent, this is probably true. That is why we have deadlines in the first place — few people would finish anything without the knowledge that it must be done by a specific time, and that people are expecting them to finish their work by that time. Sometimes that big push is what it takes to complete a difficult assignment. After all, what student has not experienced the magic that the combination of 64 ounces of coffee and sleep deprivation can work on our more esoteric papers? Regardless of what your teachers or your parents might tell you, empirical data tends to suggest that not all procrastination is inherently evil and detrimental to the health of our grade point averages.
The problem arises when procrastination becomes the habit and not the last-ditch resort. Becoming too entrenched in procrastination is like taking two steps forward and one step back; while we generally do ultimately finish our assignments by the time they are due (even if our papers are still hot from the printer when we walk into class), we finish them last minute at the expense of the other things we need to do. Constantly playing “catch-up” inevitably leaves things undone that need doing, whether they are other long-term assignments, cleaning the kitchen or simply taking time to relax and breathe. And contrary to popular belief, surfing the Internet for four hours does not truly constitute “relaxing,” or at least the kind of relaxing that overworked college students require. Procrastination as a habit is the kickoff to a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle where we never come out on top and never can throw away our to-do lists with a good conscience.
I write all of this from personal experience. I am not immune to procrastination; no one who is not a programmed robot really is. Like the vast majority of students at UT, I am taking several hours of coursework, working a job and trying to keep some semblance of a social life, all while trying to begin research for my senior thesis. To a certain extent, procrastinating in this case is unavoidable. There are literally not enough hours in the day to go to work, finish all of our homework, eat a meal that might have some nutritional value and get enough sleep to not be a walking zombie the next day. Certain things must be put off until tomorrow, because other things can’t wait until tomorrow.
The key, then, is to master a skill often lauded but rarely taught: prioritization. The ability to determine what must be done immediately and what can wait is not something that we inherently know. In fact, our ideas about what should be prioritized are often wrong, or at least misguided. If you’re like me and use cleaning your room as an excuse to avoid homework, you are ultimately not prioritizing appropriately. Cleaning your room is certainly a necessity and one that should not be neglected if you want to live in a biohazard-free zone; but cleaning at the expense of homework that contributes to your grade in class is choosing to prioritize the wrong thing. Mothers the world over may disagree, but your room can wait for another day, assuming nothing is starting to smell or glow green.
Above all, the one thing I see college students routinely forgetting to do is to truly relax. As I said above, relaxing does not mean staring at Facebook profiles or even partying on weekends. It might be a momentary distraction, but it does not entail the kind of slowing down and taking a real break that college students desperately need. I would argue that relaxing is just as high of a priority as schoolwork — even above cleaning your room. It is the difference between healthily managing stress and burning out, which causes us to fall even farther behind than we already are. Taking time for ourselves, even if it’s a 10-minute walk outside or drinking a cup of tea, is the greatest solution to procrastination available, because it revives our bodies and our minds and helps us tackle the things that truly need doing.
— Sarah Russell is a senior in history. She can be reached at srusse22@utk.edu.
