With dead week almost over and finals rapidly approaching, many students are facing increased anxiety at the prospect of term papers and finals for which they are highly unprepared.
For those procrastinators, finals week won’t commence until Dec. 6 around 11pm , but the days prior will be spent worrying about the amount of work left to do, playing Angry Birds and Skyrim while feeling guilty and stalking every person imaginable on Facebook in extreme boredom.
Procrastinators could enjoy these activities without the accompanied feelings of guilt, shame and worry if they broke their addicting habit and forced themselves to begin cramming just one night earlier or finish that paper the night before the deadline rather than the morning of. Luckily, there are some tricks that can make this task more feasible.
1. Make false deadlines.
Procrastinators’ main problem stems from seeing a deadline and automatically planning on studying or working on the assignment the night before. However, chronic procrastinators generally succeed in their endeavors because they are especially skilled at completing work quickly under extreme pressure. If this pressure arrives much earlier than a deadline, a procrastinator could finish work much earlier and use the extra time to study more if needed or improve an assignment before turning it in. At the beginning of the semester take all tests, paper deadlines and large assignment deadlines and write them in your planner for two to three days prior. Try to make these deadlines believable; chances are you will forget the actual deadlines and whatever you do, don’t let yourself find out when the real deadlines are!
2. Plan events the night before.
To procrastinators, this sounds like a terrible idea, but making plans the night before deadlines is the best way to move your deadline back and force yourself to get the work done earlier. Agree to work until midnight the night before, or plan to go out with your friends. Plan the event so the possibility of working after you return is impossible.
3. Give your passwords and phone to someone you trust.
While you’re at it, give your stumbleupon password, iPhone and anything else you use to occupy yourself when you don’t feel like doing work. Instruct this person not to return your passwords or phone until you finish your work. The agony of living without a phone and Facebook will force you to finish your work as fast as possible to continue stalking that ex or stumbling.
4. Drive somewhere far to study.
If you use the gas money to get to a library or bookstore twenty minutes away you are less likely to waste your time there, feel like coming back early or get distracted. First of all, the monetary loss sustained through traveling the distance will be a deterrent to leaving. There will also be a lesser probability of running into people you know. Even going just a little farther than D.H . Hill to the Cameron Village library makes it more difficult to get distracted or leave.
5. Give yourself rewards.
Positive reinforcement is an effective form of behavior therapy in many cases. For drug addicts, positive reinforcements provided for good behavior are things like extra time outside a rehab facility or other increased privileges. Procrastination addicts can’t provide themselves with these rewards but can attempt a parallel method. Sitting with a box of candy and allowing one piece for every section completed can provide incentive to complete work quickly. Rewards can even be attending events the day before an assignment is due.
Procrastinators are hard workers but need imminent pressure to get things done. Using these tips can help create that pressure before the deadline actually arrives so procrastination attitudes and behaviors are still practiced, but produce less detrimental effects.
