Those looming essays – “How the Invention of the Barometer Effected Modern Society,” “Political Trends that Impacted the Renaissance Movement” – always tend to pile up at the back of your head, building intensity until the night before they are due, and then KABOOM! You remember you have to do them. You freak out. You try to start, but you can’t concentrate. You panic. You finally resign yourself to doing it. You take a late dinner break. You crank out a conclusion in the morning and when you pass it in, you feel like you are getting rid of a slimy piece of uncooked animal fat that has been rolled out and stapled to a works cited page.
Procrastination.
Everyone puts off work at some point, but the problem with procrastination is that it can be stressful and it can take all the enjoyment of a task that isn’t even that bad. The truth is that writing essays (or cleaning the bathroom, or balancing your checkbook) can be boring, hard work, but it doesn’t have to be the terrible beast that you’ve imagined.
The most common thing that people do to make their homework less enjoyable is to go at it unprepared. You wouldn’t decide to go out for a 5-mile run, stand up, and run out the door in your jeans and socks, holding a mug of tea. So why would you torture yourself with spontaneous homework? Instead, try coming up with a brief ritual to get yourself warmed up. You might already do a few things naturally, but take some time to think about what you need. I know that I don’t like to start my work until after I’ve, got 1) a mechanical pencil, 2) a comfortable chair 3) a snack 4) my books and computer within reach and 5) a snack. What is it that you need? A 15-minute walk? A cup of juice? Some Mozart? Pamper yourself before you get started, and hopefully you’ll find that it’s easier to concentrate when you have already taken care of all your needs.
Another reason that people procrastinate is because the project that they have before them seems so huge and intense that they are afraid of getting started. This, of course, is an illogical way of looking at a problem, but everybody does it at some point. One way to solve this is to coax yourself into getting started. Gather everything you need for a project and get to work, but only for 30 minutes. Time it. It will be much easier to concentrate without stressing when you know you only have to work for half an hour. And once you’ve gotten started, it will be less painful to get to work on it again tomorrow.
The final piece of anti-procrastination advice I have is this: get excited, even if you have to force yourself. Homework is much easier to do if you enjoy it, so when you have to work on something that doesn’t seem interesting, MAKE IT INTERESTING. Think of a creative way to present your information; choose an essay topic that you are passionate about; bring your own hobbies and interests into a topic that you find boring; and most importantly: be open minded. Usually assignments don’t turn out to be as bad as we imagine them, so stop worrying and start writing.
1 comment:
You should have a reaction box for "helpful". I would have checked it for this one.
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