BY: BRUNO GRUBESIC
Staff Writer
Procrastination. It gets the best of everyone. “In a second” becomes “in an hour” becomes “tomorrow when I wake up” becomes “before class” becomes “I didn’t need those five points anyways, it’ll only drop my letter grade .03%” very quickly.
Avoiding procrastination is not an easy task, and some students at Meramec have tapped in with some of their personal habits around the problem. “I tell myself the sooner you do it the sooner you don’t have to worry about it,” said Meramec Student Carrson McDaniel. This is an approach common among students. He said that thinking this way about his tasks has usually helped him stay on top of his assignments, depending on his energy levels and motivation to finish.
Many other students also find themselves struggling to find any motivation to get ahead on their work. Issues like this aren’t always resolved on the surface level, however. Other students have also reported struggling with mental barriers such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or, ADHD, resulting in a shortened attention span, and difficulty focusing.
“The only thing that stopped my procrastination was my ADHD diagnosis and medication,” said Meramec Student Devi Staudte. With the increase in mental health awareness in recent years, many students are starting to realize that it’s good to check in on themselves and identify and solve their issues.
Some students, including Claire Sackman, fall victim to procrastination. “I am a chronic procrastinator,” she said. It isn’t always possible to move around or through an issue, and sometimes students find themselves simply not getting through procrastination.
Similarly, Meramec Student Danielle Stewart has an approach reminiscent of Sackman’s. “I usually find that procrastinating works better for me than trying to force myself to work if I’m not feeling it,” she said. “As long as the work gets done by the deadline, I don’t see the issue.”
Which brings up an interesting ideology, is procrastination necessarily, inherently bad? Dominic J. Voge at Princeton breaks up his piece “Understanding and Overcoming Procrastination” into four major steps: awareness, time management, finding motivation, and keeping motivation. Over his time teaching and researching developmental education, he has noticed that the first of these major steps to overcoming procrastination is understanding why one procrastinates.
Some people simply don’t have energy to get ahead on an assignment, or believe they work better under pressure. After finding the root of the problem, the next step is time management. There are many different ways to find time management solutions, but Voge mentions being careful with to-do lists and over-doing scheduling as it may lead to an increase in stress.
Some students at Meramec also report having gained better time management skills after having picked up a job outside of school to keep themselves busy. After time management is finding motivation, specifically the right motivation. Voge said that one must be interested in learning and achieving for positive, productive, and satisfying reasons and emotion.
Voge said to avoid “showing off,” and to ask questions about subjects to fully immerse into and understand them. Avoid accepting misunderstanding of a subject at the cost of dignity and image. Finally, the last milestone is to keep motivation high. This can be done primarily through staying attentive, and finding a purpose in classes.
