Procrastination – “Planned Forgetfulness”
f5.sept24.procrast.packer
Courtnie Packer
staff writer
As time moves forward, the epidemic has been unleashed. It affects all age groups, all professions, all races, and it touches four corners of the globe. It may be highly contagious, addicting and difficult to cure.
This is known as procrastination – or “planned forgetfulness.”
According to Webster’s Dictionary, procrastination is “putting off what should be done today.” The symptoms of the condition include laziness, lack of desire to perform a certain task, prioritizing ineffectively and placing aside work that must be accomplished today.
“Procrastination takes hard work and dedication, and I have made it an art,” said Jamie Bergstrom, freshman majoring in biology. “I procrastinate because I believe in cramming. If you do not cram, you will forget anything before the test or assignment anyway.”
“I’m the poster child for procrastination,” said Bryan Johnson, junior majoring in English. “It just seems to be a lot more convenient to procrastinate because if you do put things off till last minute and still get them done, you can still get as good of a grade as doing it days in advance.”
David Glenn, a researcher for The Chronicle of Higher Education, reported procrastination is closely linked to “avoidant coping styles,” or the tendency to neglect problems that cause anxiety rather than confront them. Such trends not only include school-related items such as late term papers, but also higher rates of smoking, drinking and the tendency to postpone seeing a doctor for severe health problems. A study recently founded in Columbus Ohio, shows that the worst procrastinators are more likely to use rationalizations to justify their habit of procrastination, and those in the study used excuses such as, “I work best under pressure,” “I am good in a crunch,” or even “I will do it later. I will have more time then.”
In one of Glenn’s separate studies, statistics showed that 2.7 percent of university students have falsely claimed that their grandmother or other family member died. More common excuses, like claims the student’s computer failed to print or their computer crashed, were all widely used. Results even showed that students were significantly more likely to offer such excuses to female instructors than male ones.
Bergstrom said, “Procrastination is just normal college student behavior. People avoid doing things that they do not want to do.”
According to Glenn’s research, college students who do procrastinate their academic work, not only affect their education, but also are more likely to have unhealthy sleep, diet and exercise patterns. This research and other similar studies suggest that improving one’s time management isn’t an effective solution to the syndrome.
“Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up,” said Joseph R. Ferrari, associate professor of psychology at DePaul University and key advocate in Glenn’s research.
Johnson said, “Procrastination is sheer mental matter. You have to force yourself to do something. The problem is that the outside world does not tolerate procrastination.”
Some consider procrastination to be completely impossible to avoid.
“There are definitely many other things that you can do that are more important and interesting,” Johnson said. “I talk to students all the time that only seem to do things last minute. It is just college life.”
But there are ways to prevent procrastination.
“You have to reward yourself to avoid procrastinating,” Bergstrom said. “I have to tell myself that I can go do this,but only after I get this done first. You have to discipline yourself.”
courtnie.packer@aggiemail.usu.edu