How do I deal with stress? Procrastinate, clearly! I used to be a huge procrastinator. I’d procrastinate on almost every assignment I needed to complete. I still remember a time back in fourth grade where I didn’t start putting together my science fair project until the day before it was due (and somehow got an A). I always waited the last minute for most of my assignments and usually everything just worked out somehow. Though high school showed me I needed to better manage my time in order to keep up with all my classes and activities, there are times where I’ll just have zero motivation to do any work, such as writing my nonfiction essays. Here, I’ll set up a scenario:
I stare at my laptop screen, barely holding up my head up with my arm. As I try to work on an assignment, my brain begins to offer a new idea instead of working. “Hey, go ahead and postpone your work for just fifteen short minutes. This’ll help you reenergize and get you back into your groove!” My hand begins to unconsciously move the computer’s cursor towards my bookmarked YouTube tab, as I’m in a back and forth debate with myself over whether or not to procrastinate. These almost always end in disaster.
I open up YouTube and start my journey, going to their trending page and selecting the video I find the most interesting. I then let the AutoPlay feature do its thing, and by the time an hour passes by I’m watching the most random and weird videos such as “Jimmy Neutron Happy Family Happy Hour” that are for some reason a thousand times more interesting now that I am procrastinating. I snap back into consciousness realizing that I’ve just spent an hour wasting my precious time. I go back to my assignment, but now, not only do I feel less motivated to do my work, I am more tired than before I took my “little” break. And the cycle repeats all over again, until I’ve felt enough guilt to either force myself to get back to work, or worse, go to bed and just rely on myself to wake up tomorrow and finish it tomorrow.
I try to procrastinate to relieve stress, but in fact it does the opposite. My brain will keep reminding me over and over again of my important tasks, thus clearly causing a lot of stress until the intensity of the reminder is too much and I’m forced to work, or I’m screwed. I feel guilty and unhappy, and it’s really hard to bring myself to stop procrastinating once I have started. Real sad boi hours.
I found your explication of the struggle between being productive and procrastination quite scintillating. Unfortunately, I usually fall to the same procrastination trap and almost always regret my decision. You seem to have a healthy balance between both and that's rly admirable. Great post!
ReplyDeleteIt's actually really interesting to get such a deep dive into your procrastination. I knew it was bad, but not this bad. However, if you didn't procrastinate, you, Dolcos, and I wouldn't have nearly as many late-night Discord meme talks.
ReplyDeleteBut then again, if you didn't procrastinate, you might have a better GPA. Sad boi hours
Procrastination sucks. It's the definition of immediate gratification. You do something that will make you immediately happy even though it will just hurt you later on. For some reason though we just can't avoid procrastination. Like "yeah, I could start my history essay or I could watch The office for the 72th time". I do the same thing but that's something that I've recently wanted to change.
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ReplyDeleteWow, sad boi hours. These are the real struggles. I deal with the exact same thing, especially with English essays, and YouTube can be especially sexy sometimes, especially when you are procrastinating. This post, despite being about your experiences, also spoke to my academic experiences as well, practically spelling out my procrastination. A tip which I seldom follow, but might help you is this: Don't play Smash at school the day an essay is due. Good luck on that Natural History Essay!
ReplyDeleteNote: Why does Blogger say "This comment has been removed by the author." So annoying.
I completely agree with you, as this is exactly how I procrastinate and feel doing it. The biggest problem for me is having no motivation at all, more often than not because I have to do a task that doesn't interest me. However, I find that even if I feel a concentrated moment of stress from setting it off so much, the satisfaction from finally getting it done afterwards is worth it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, procrastination is hard because you feel so good in the moment watching youtube or netflix but sooner or late you gotta do the assignment. This is coming from someone who is doing their 10 comments at 10pm the day they are due.
ReplyDeleteI love procrastinating, but hate myself for loving it. I can get good work done under pressure, but sometimes I just turn things in late instead of getting it done last minute. I did one assignment ahead of time this year and it was so much more enjoyable than procrastinating, but I doubt I will change my ways.
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