Procrastination is a universal everyday phenomenon that can seem little more than clich',
a small-talk joke or boast or complaint; we all do it, after all. Yet a newly reported
survey of students at a large urban university in the U. S. is probably typical in that
a
majority (52%) of the students claimed a high or moderate need for assistance with
regard to procrastination which is more than any other area of concern
(www.info.wlu.ca). There are a great many causes to the addiction to this thing called
procrastination.
There are many underlying issues and causes of procrastination. Lack of relevance and
interest are two of the most common causes. While perfectionism (having extremely
high standards which are almost unreachable) is another. Evaluation anxiety, ambiguity,
fear of failure and self-doubt, fear of success, inability to handle the task, lack of
information needed to complete the task, environmental conditions, physical conditions,
and anxiety over expectations that others have of you, are all very serious causes of
procrastination.
Poor time management is a great cause of procrastination. Procrastination means not
managing time wisely. You may be uncertain of you priorities, goals and objectives.
You may also be overwhelmed with the task. As a result, you keep putting off your
academic assignments for a later date, or spending a great deal of time with your
friends
and social activities, or worrying about you upcoming examination, class project and
papers rather than completing them.
2
There are quite a few people that have difficulty concentrating. When you sit at your
desk you find yourself daydreaming, staring into space, looking at pictures of your
boyfriend/girlfriend, etc., instead of doing the task. Your environment is distracting
and
noisy. You keep running back and forth for equipment such as pencils, erasers,
dictionary, etc.(www.wings.buffalo.edu/student-life/ccenter/Stress/procras.bro). Your
desk is cluttered and unorganized and sometimes you sit or lay on your bed to study or
do
your assignments. You probably notice that all of the examples that you just read
promote time wasting and frustration.
Our behavioral patterns are another cause of procrastination. Getting started on an
unpleasant of difficult task may seem impossible. Procrastination is likened to the
physics concept of inertia - a mass at rest tends to stay at rest
(www.ucc.vt.edu/stdysk/procrast.html). Greater forces are required to start change than
to sustain change. Another way of viewing it is that avoiding tasks reinforces
procrastination which make it harder to get things going. A person may be stuck, too,
not
by the lack of desire, but by not knowing what to do.
Procrastinating is a great problem amongst the student bodies of schools today as well
as
the work force of the U. S. In this paper I have discussed the very serious many causes
of
procrastination.
|