Procrastination is the art of delaying what’s not essential. People procrastinate insead of dealing with matters with higher significance daily. Procrastination in school means delaying or postponing an assignment till the last minute. Many people, including students, react differently to procrastination. Some students benefit from procrastination, while others may not. For students that work well under pressure, procrastination benefits their studying processes, making it possible to maintain good grades. Students who do not work well when procrastinating usually find it hard to make their best grades; therefore, they need extra time to work on their studies. This article demonstrates examples of two students who procrastinate on a daily basis and how procrastination affects their educational experience. 

Emma

My habit stretches back into elementary school. I picked it up watching my older siblings in high school rush to their computers at around 11 pm, and the following day brag about their rushed assignments that turned into sufficient and sometimes impressive grades. My brain quickly and inadvertently stowed this process away as a refined skill, and my math homework was done on the same morning it is due since then. 

My procrastination process usually follows the same pattern. The class is assigned homework, and it casually puts itself on my to-do list. At this point the burden is light as I do not have to think about touching the assignment until much closer to the due date. However, the combining pressure of the deadline and the minimal progress made eventually begins to heighten stress levels. This is the anxious stage, but even though it is all I can think about, there is still time before it is considered late, and it will be put off until there is exactly enough time to squeeze in the assignment right before the deadline. As it grows closer to crunch time anxiety peaks until the final moments before submitting, and just like that, one thing has painlessly been checked off from my to-do list, and there is suddenly room to panic over the next due assignment. 

This process holds my weekly agenda in a cycle of repetition. The school week is always a more peaceful experience when assignments are completed with time to spare. Even though this is the case it is a reliable process and comforting in its own demented way. If there is a paper due at the end of the week that provides at least three or four days of almost complete relaxation. Sure, it is thinly veiled with light anxiety, but those few days guarantee a small vacation from the assignment. 

The biggest upside to procrastination is the focus that it provides. When there are exactly 15 minutes to hit turn, every one of those sixty second increments must be productive.  Sometimes the straightforward steps to completing a project simply do not click until the extremely limited window that was just barely squeezed in before the deadline. 

William

My name is William Peveto, and I will thoroughly discuss how procrastination affects my educational experience. As a well-developed, well-rounded student, procrastination has helped build my work ethic as a young student scholar. Procrastination has been beneficial because it has allowed me to focus on deadlines and work at a more gradual pace. When I don’t procrastinate, I wander off and get distracted from the given assignment, but with procrastination, the ability to get distracted is no longer an option. When I work on an assignment early and put it away for a later time, my mind isn’t on the same level of thinking as when I had left off, and this makes recollecting my thoughts harder. 

For some students procrastination is their designated school-work process. To some it is detrimental to the rest of their schedule, but to others it is how their work seems to thrive. A study found in the article “Longitudinal Study of Procrastination, Performance, Stress, and Health: The Costs and Benefits of Dawdling” found that “The negative correlations mean that procrastinators experienced significantly less stress and fewer symptoms than non procrastinators.” Occasionally, however, procrastination is simply a bad habit due to a temporary bit of stress. Another cause is the complete and utter dread of a specific assignment. It is important to point out that laziness is not a likely source of procrastination. Generally there are reasons as to why beginning a project can feel so difficult. 

Either way we firmly believe that procrastination is an art form that should not be diminished. This is the case as long as the procrastinator’s code remains intact. Procrastination is not shameful, and is even inspiring as long as the assignment is squeezed in before the deadline. A fresh google doc may be opened an hour or two before a five page essay is due as long as it is submitted by 11:59. 

This article was submitted a few days after the deadline. Yes, we do see the crushing irony.