Article by Firedrake6001
Procrastination. We all procrastinate at one time or another. I procrastinated, this weekend. I was thinking about writing this article but I never seemed to get around to it. I just had to play another hour of video games. I have to study for a test. So, I finally got around to it today. I believe that there are two types of procrastinators, the lazy procrastinators and the busy as hell ones. The lazy ones think “I’ll just do it tomorrow” or “I’ll do it after I take a nap”. Do you know what the lazy ones say the next day? “I’ll just do it tomorrow”, until they run out of time and they scramble to it at the last minute. The busy procrastinators don’t really mean to procrastinate a certain task, but they do since they’re up to their necks with a bunch of other tasks. They do all of the minor tasks first to get them out of the way, and then when they’re going to start on the major task, another minor task comes up. The major, and usually most important task, keeps getting pushed back until time runs out and it’s physically impossible to get all of the work done. Or, the busy guy just gets slammed with a billion tasks and he/she wishes that they had just got the major one over with.
I am currently in 10th grade, so I will be relating a lot of the next part of the article to high school and my summer job (summer of freshman year) as a dishwasher. When I look at my schoolwork and I notice that I have a few projects due in a week or two. If I were the average procrastinator, I’d think to myself “Why do them today? I have all week and the weekend”. However, it had slipped my mind that I had two band performances on the weekend. I do not procrastinate. From my experience, I adopted the philosophy “Why do it later when you can do it now?” Allow me to provide a couple real-life situations.
It’s Monday afternoon, and I just got home from school. Jazz band rehearsal was cancelled and fencing starts next week. I have no math homework, since I didn’t have the class, and only a few other short assignments. However, I spy a note on my planner that says I have to write an essay by next Monday. I think, “Hmmm, I don’t have much to do now, but I might get slammed with homework later in the week.” Better get started on that essay. Behold, the next day I was swamped in homework. I took me three hours to finally finish. Then comes the weekend, and I get a fair load of homework again. It’s good that I did my essay before hand, or I wouldn’t have much free time. I was able to get through the rush and have plenty of down time, thanks to doing my assignment in advance.
The following a dishwashing example. It’s Thursday night, and it’s 7:00. Thursdays are unpredictable; it could be wicked busy or completely dead. There are not a lot of dishes coming in right now, and there’s not much silverware to wash. When I turn around I realize that there are two buckets full of oven plates and a big pot that need to be washed. I could either wash the stuff now, or put it off until later in the night, and take a break now. I think about this, and decide that it is better to get it over with. It is a good thing too, since at 8:00, the rush started and I got slammed with dishes. It is a good thing that I got those dishes done or I’d be miserable. Either of these examples really happened, or are slightly varied.
With dishwashing and school, it helps to adopt the right attitude. A good attitude helps to motivate one so that they can get the work done faster. An attitude that works is, “Don’t worry about what you have to do, just do it. Keep chipping away at your task(s).” Also, don’t worry about things coming up in the future, get your task(s) done in the present. Think about future work when it comes around. Also, this might just be me, but I always find that work to be done always is like a dark cloud while I’m having fun. It’s always sitting the back of my mind, until I get it done. In short, don’t procrastinate, it’s better to get things done right away.
Think of it this way, procrastination has never done anybody any good, but doing things right away has never done anybody any bad.
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