Laura C.
- May 2, 2023

Procrastination

Procrastination can be defined as the act of delaying an action until the very last minute. The word comes from the Latin prefix pro-, which means “forward”, and the suffix -crastinus, meaning “to tomorrow” (Agboga). Procrastination can become a chronic problem for everyone, no matter what age. Despite many parents believing that the root of procrastination is social media and phones or laziness, procrastination is not a new problem. For example, the ancient Greeks and Romans wrote about fighting procrastination (Jaffe). Procrastination has many effects, mostly negative, on one’s health.

Generally, people say that procrastination results from a lack of motivation or distractions. In reality, procrastination is caused by the brain’s limbic system and the prefrontal cortex fighting. The limbic system is a very active and old part of the brain that regulates our behavioral and emotional reactions. The prefrontal cortex is a younger and less developed part of the brain that regulates personality and decision-making (Kor). Usually, the limbic system wins this battle, which results in procrastination. This is because procrastination feels good at the moment, and the limbic system wants to have that good feeling, not thinking about the future consequences (Kor).

People often say procrastination is the result of bad time management, distractions, lack of motivation, and laziness. However, modern psychological researchers see it as the inability to self-regulate oneself (Jaffe). This could be due to bad time management, or as experts now think, the failure to manage one’s emotions. At the center, procrastination is the inability to manage one’s mood swings and emotions. People who procrastinate chronically have also been found to have poor emotional reactions to possible negative consequences of their actions, which leads to more negative thoughts and putting important tasks off (Ling).

Another factor of procrastination is temporal thinking. Temporal thinking is the way an individual sees themself in the future. Humans are not very good at temporal thinking (Ling). Temporal thinking leads procrastinators to think that their imagined “future selves” will be “better”, so will be better suited to solve all the problems in the present. They think that their future self will be new and improved and will solve all their problems and be able to finish the large tasks set for them in the present (Ling). In reality, humans don’t change that fast, so the task just keeps getting put off further and further into the future, which is procrastination.

A common belief may be that procrastination is, at its very best, beneficial to an individual. Some people believe that the stress procrastination creates can produce better work (Jaffe). Some even say that it does not matter whether they procrastinate or not because if the task is completed in the end, who cares about how they got there? On the contrary, the results of not procrastinating far outweigh the costs of procrastinating. Although, in the beginning, it may seem the opposite, with procrastinators enjoying lower levels of stress, in the end, it always catches up, as the total amount of stress for a procrastinator will be higher than someone who does not procrastinate. Additionally, studies have shown that students who procrastinate receive, in general, lower grades than students who do not (Jaffe). Finally, procrastinating is a form of self-defeat, with those who procrastinate just trying to undermine themselves. According to Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University, “[procrastinators] would rather have other people think that they lack effort than [lack] ability” (qtd. in Jaffe).

So what can be done about procrastination? Sadly, many people are chronic procrastinators. According to the American Psychological Association, around 80 to 95 percent of college students procrastinate (Novoteny). The consequences of procrastinating are great and best to be avoided. Students can practice temporal thinking to get better at it, like thinking of realistic future selves instead of someone idealistic. Chronic procrastination is like depression- one cannot simply stop procrastinating (Ling). Students can practice self-compassion and mindfulness to help with their procrastinating. Self-compassion involves understanding that mistakes are made by everyone, so just move on from them. Mindfulness can involve breathing exercises and thinking about the positive instead of the negative (Ling). In the end, the only way to stop procrastinating is to be proactive and take a step back to really look at oneself, one’s actions, and their consequences.