The pitfall of not only college students, but of most everyone from high school to adulthood is procrastination. Procrastination, by definition, is the act or habit of putting off or delaying, especially something requiring immediate attention. This is what most of us do every day. Instead of doing things that need to be done in the spare time we have, we fill this time with idle activities such as watching shows or surfing the internet. Then our deadlines come up and we wind up draining ourselves with long nights spent agonizing over getting things done. The question: why do we do this to ourselves?
In theory, we should know that all of these things will have to be done eventually, so why is it that we do wait so long to do them? Why do we push ourselves to crunch time? It is procrastination which is stressful and ultimately is aging us well beyond our years. If we were simply getting everything done as quickly as we could and as things came up, then (for the most part) we wouldn’t need to stress out or pour an insane amount of our time into doing something all at once. I’m no expert, but in my opinion, procrastination truly stems from our desire to “live in the moment.” Most people want to focus on doing enjoyable things such as going out with friends, spending quality time with family and relaxing. This is understandable and is necessary for our mental health, but essentially we keep using these reasons as excuses to slack off.
Basically, if those of us who fall prey to procrastination were to cut back even a quarter of the time we spent on our “mental health,” we would not actually be so stressed out and in need of these distractions. We absolutely need to work on our procrastination because it is pre-maturely aging us and keeping our lives maxed out. And don't be fooled-- the key to conquering procrastination is not to plan. As a long time procrastinator I spend more time planning out how I am going to work through the day than I do actually doing anything. Just remember: the next time you have some time to spare and you find yourself literally searching for activities to occupy yourself with, look over what you have coming up, then do a little each day and give yourself a break from all of the stress.
