Procrastination always seems to hit you when you have a presentation to prepare for, a major exam to study for, and a 10-page research paper due in less than 2 days. You could feel all the urgency in the world yet for some reason your focus becomes narrowed and sitting down and working on your coursework feels almost impossible. It can be a huge struggle to redirect your attention back to your schoolwork so you just end up doing other things that only work to waste your time. Here are some things you are most likely doing instead of that homework and studying that needs to be done:
Taking super long showers
Showers are a good way to wind down and relax but it is really easy to spend too much time taking them. The whole scrubbing your body and washing your hair portion is done pretty fast but the contemplating-your-entire-life-and-having-a-full-on-concert part is what really prolongs your shower. Singing (more like screaming) along to your favorite album during your shower relieves a lot of tension and makes you forget about impending deadlines from school. Not to mention, all that running water makes you feel like you’re some R&B Icon in a music video singing your soul out in the rain. It is all fun and games until that hot water runs out and you’re forced to leave your steamy wonderland.
Tidying up your place
For some weird reason, approaching deadlines strike up the urge to clean and rearrange your living space whether that be a dorm, apartment, or house. Cleaning is turned to in times of stress because there is a belief that tidying up the cluttered space around you can allow you to focus more on the academic tasks at hand. So you put on your favorite tunes, do the dishes, do your laundry, and organize your desk space. You end up feeling really productive until you realize that you haven’t reviewed any of your notes or done any homework. Yikes.
Starting a new series on Netflix
One of the worst choices you could make right before a major deadline. Sure that show looks awesome but you know that you’re going to end up binge watching it, leaving you no time to get your studying done. It takes a great amount of sheer willpower to ignore an interesting looking show with all its seasons available and ready to watch. Just keep in mind that these series are not going anywhere (most of the time) so you can always come back and watch it at a later time, like when you don’t have a test coming up.
Going down the Youtube hole
Youtube has it all: Music videos, makeup tutorials, game play, and vine compilations. With such a wide variety of content to watch, it is no real surprise on how fast you can get absorbed. You can get on YouTube to watch one specific video and then somehow you end up on the weird side of YouTube and hours have passed. You get off wondering how you even spent that much time on there watching conspiracy theories about ridiculous things.
Going out with your friends
What is more appealing than writing a technical paper? Letting loose with your pals, most definitely. All you need is that “Wanna hang out?” text and you are ready to drop all your coursework. Besides, even if you tell your friends you have schoolwork to do they will most likely persuade you to shrug it off and go out with them. Then again you can’t really blame your friends for falling behind on your assignments when you’re eager to bolt out the door and leave your homework behind. Good luck trying to not worry about that 11:59 p.m. deadline while you’re out!
Checking on your social media
Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram are all great time wasters. You could be at your desk, getting ready to start on a project when you decide to pick up your phone and check what is going on in social media. Big mistake. You only meant to look for a couple of minutes but you just kept scrolling and scrolling. You finally put your phone down, work on your project for 5 minutes, and then you pick up your phone again so the cycle just continues. You may be way behind on your assignment, but at least you go to see some hilarious memes.
Napping
Napping, the ultimate pastime. When you get overwhelmed by school and other stressors, there comes the strong urge to sleep it off. One of the greatest feelings in life is crawling in bed after a long day and snuggling under the covers. Napping is great and all but you have the potential to lose hours and therefore, time for productivity. Besides, you may feel good as soon as you wake up but then that post-nap guilt will hit for not using that nap time for your assignments. You can try the whole “I’m only going to nap for 30 minutes” thing but come on, that never works.
You could do all of these things and have a pleasant time doing them but that still doesn’t change the fact that you ignored your coursework. Schoolwork and the stress that comes out of it is a drag but once it is done, you have a little less to worry about so you can enjoy everything mentioned a lot more. So snap out of your procrastination past times and get on those assignments!