I always knew I had a procrastination problem, but the magnitude of it became crystal clear to me one day my junior year of high school. I had a test in U.S. History, my first period, and an essay due at the beginning of English, my second period. I, naturally, had not finished the essay due to procrastinating it until the last day.
The obvious solution for me was to take my history test as fast as I could so that I could use the remaining time in that period to finish the essay. I remember thinking, as I rushed through the test questions already outlining my essay conclusion in my head, that maybe, just maybe, my procrastination was a problem. Then, I got a good grade on both my test and essay, so I figured it couldn’t actually be too much of a problem and made zero changes.
For my entire high school career, I almost never started working on anything until the day it was due — possibly the day before if I was feeling productive. I knew my procrastination was a bad thing creating unnecessary stress, but I just couldn’t seem to stop. I didn’t procrastinate long enough to ever turn something in late, just two minutes before it was due. I also didn’t feel like my grades were affected by my procrastination.
The primary motivator behind my pathological procrastination was my perfectionism. If I couldn’t do an assignment perfectly or found it difficult in even the slightest way, from an essay to a math worksheet, then I simply couldn’t work on it. I would stare at the blank document or math problem and try to force myself to do it but I just couldn’t. It wouldn’t be until I felt the pressure of a looming deadline that I could get my work done because the stress of not turning something in at all would override my stress of not being able to do it perfectly. Two hours before the deadline, the essay would pour out of me easily or I would be able to figure out the math problem quickly.
The worst part was that I came to rely on my procrastination as a tool to get my work done. Eventually, when I came up against difficulty in an assignment, I wouldn’t even try to work through it. I would simply set the assignment aside, knowing that when the deadline came, my pressure and anxiety would kick in and I would be able to finish it.
My pattern of procrastination continued when I started my first semester of college. That is until I had a realization. In an essay-heavy class, my kind and generous professor made our first essay simply a practice assignment that wouldn’t affect our grades. I naturally wrote the entire essay the night it was due, and to my shock, my “grade” for the essay was not good. Maybe, I realized … I should have started writing it earlier?
I was so scared by the poor practice grade that I took my time with the next essay, which was for a real grade, starting the brainstorming process a week ahead of time and writing the essay a little each day. To absolutely no one’s surprise, I found my stress levels about the assignment to be far lower than normal and my work to be of much higher quality. Perhaps, I thought to myself, I should stop my procrastination once and for all. Perhaps it would be nice to not constantly stress over unfinished work. Over the semester, I slowly started to cultivate habits that kept me on top of my work and ensured I didn’t wait until the last minute to complete an assignment. This semester, my second semester of college, I can proudly say that I haven’t procrastinated at all and I am fully a reformed procrastinator.
Many small changes, both practical and mental, went into my recovery from procrastination, but I have distilled the most impactful changes into five points that anyone would be able to implement to help themselves stop procrastinating for good.
1. Make to-do lists – and actually do it
This is the first step to beating procrastination. If you make a to-do list of things you want to accomplish today, then you’re committing yourself to actually getting work done that day instead of on the day everything is due. Studies have shown that to-do lists increase productivity, and I certainly get satisfaction each time I check off a task. Make sure that you know your limits and only put the tasks on your to-do list that you can reasonably get done in a day. Of course, for a to-do list to work you have to actually do the things that are on it, which is where the next steps come in.
2. Focus on specific and concrete tasks
You can’t just write on your to-do list, “work on history essay.” The magnitude of this task is overwhelming and will only fuel further procrastination. When I put a vague task like that on my to-do list I either don’t do it at all or do the bare minimum of work on it and judge it as complete enough to check off. To actually accomplish things through a to-do list, you must write down only specific and concrete tasks, like “create an outline for paragraphs 1 and 2 of history essay” or “draft introduction for history essay.” Something that’s concrete doesn’t seem very overwhelming, so you’ll be more likely to actually do it. Writing down something specific also ensures that you actually accomplish something you need to get done instead of just a few minutes of work that satisfies a vague to-do list task.
3. Plan out a work schedule for big assignments
For a big assignment, like a project or essay, I find that if I plan out when I’m going to work on specific parts of that assignment then I’m far less likely to procrastinate the entire thing. As soon as you get that assignment, break it up into specific and concrete tasks, like I described in the previous point, and then schedule those tasks on your future to-do lists until that assignment is due. This ensures that you actually do start working on that big assignment ahead of time and are spreading out your work instead of leaving it until the last day.
4. Learn how you work best
Procrastination can partially be a factor in the way you do your work, such as location and timing. I’ve found that I don’t work well in my room because it’s more difficult to focus, so I procrastinate far less if I go somewhere with the specific intention of doing work, like a coffee shop or study room. My thought process is that I’m going to that place to do my work, and to only do my work, and once I finish I can leave, which is great motivation to focus. I’ve also found that I don’t work as well at night, so I delineate specific parts of my daytime to get homework done. Find what times of the day you work the best and focus on those, and figure out where you get the most work done so you can go there at those times. That way, you can make a plan about when and where you will get your work done each day.
5. Find what motivates you
I already mentioned in the last point that location can be a good motivator for me because I want to get my work done so I can leave my “homework location.” Another motivator for me is that I love to watch movies and if I don’t have plans at night, my favorite thing is to watch a movie before I go to sleep. This is something I look forward to, and I know I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my movie if I still had unfinished tasks hanging over my head, so it motivates me to get my work done earlier in the day. This is just one of the specific motivations I have to get my work done in a timely manner, and you will be able to find your own too.
Once you make the changes to stop procrastinating, you truly will not want to go back. I am so much more stress-free now and can actually enjoy my free time, which is motivation enough to not go back to my procrastinating ways. The longer you maintain your anti-procrastination habits, the easier it will be, and eventually, you too will be able to proudly call yourself a reformed procrastinator. Now, let me go check off “finish HerCampus article” from my to-do list.