Procrastination is a beast feared by many. As school approaches overdrive, students are hearing the siren’s call to slack behind, to negate academic progress for short-lived peace of mind. There is no simple fix for procrastinating; with seniors completing college applications, juniors competing in their most rigorous year yet, and underclassmen getting the hang of school, everyone within the UC community is being affected.
One huge issue with procrastination is its ability to halt any sort of improvement, academic or emotional. Senior Tyler Tran said, “For a long time I’ve just let my life take its own course. When the stress of school got to be too much, I started procrastinating to feel some sort of distraction. I shut down and had to watch my life happen before my eyes. I couldn’t really do anything or take control because of how unstructured I had let my life become.” He recounted the second half of his junior year, where he had felt like a secondary character in his own narrative.
As hopeless as it sounds, there are ways to counteract this mental parasite. The first step is to recognize all of the factors that create procrastination. According to the Washington Post, one reason is simply because our brains lack initiation. The article detailed, “A 2022 study in the journal Nature Communications suggests that a root of procrastination may lie in a cognitive bias — we believe that doing tasks will somehow be easier in the future” (washingtonpost.com). No, no matter how long someone puts off their application to Stanford or homework for their IM-1 class, the boredom will remain the same. It’s always better to do the work now, regardless of how much frustration it induces.
It is better to struggle earlier in the day than in the middle of the night. According to Solving Procrastination, “People procrastinate because their drive to delay is irrationally stronger than their drive to act. This happens when their self-control and motivation are weakened by issues like exhaustion, and are opposed by issues like fear.” Procrastination feeds off of a person’s wish to avert harsh emotions. Why study when phones and other distractions exist? According to the same article, “This phenomenon is a form of mood repair. It’s closely associated with the concepts of hedonistic delay (postponing things due to prioritization of enjoyable activities or lack of caring), instant gratification (preferring things that are immediately satisfying, even if this is disadvantageous in the long term), and the pleasure principle (tending to seek pleasurable activities and avoid unpleasant ones)” (solvingprocrastination.com).
The less-acknowledged state of burnout is another one of procrastination’s biggest counterparts. Unknowingly overworked students start to lose their ability to efficiently monitor themselves, creating an even larger sea of problems. According to the National Library of Medicine, “Ongoing burnout also involves impaired executive functioning with poor memory, concentration, and attention and with difficulties in cognitive functioning and sleeping…. Persistent clinical burnout is associated with exaggerated somatic arousal including tension, irritability, sleep impairment, and above-normal blood levels of cortisol” (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). The term somatic, as the article refers to, means physical reminders, rather than mental. Seeing the symptoms and treating them as a warning to slow down, rather than an inconvenience to push aside, greatly reduces the onset of procrastinating.
According to Southern New Hampshire University, one understated way to take care of one’s mental battery is to sometimes say no to things, “‘Often, when people are stressed or feel like they have too much on their plate, they will cut corners to get things done,’ [Academic Advisor Nicole] Rutherford said. By not committing to everything people ask you to do, you’re able to narrow your commitments down to what you know you’re able to do and do well” (snhu.edu).
One might argue that self-care tips are pointless, that it’s easier to tough it out. However, burnout doesn’t have an expiration date – the longer one pushes against asking for help, the longer that person will suffer. In today’s time, mental health is being validated more than ever. UC High, along with many other schools in the District, offer numerous resources through their counselors. The future might seem scary, but now is the only time to prepare for it. Delaying your reaction will only make things more difficult down the line.