For some college students, this time in your life is when your true procrastinator choses to show its face. You put off studying until 2 hours before a final exam, you write your major paper the day before it’s due, and you wait to buy groceries until all that’s left in your fridge is a can of Diet Dr. Pepper and moldy cheese.
While this way of living might work out for you for a few weeks, you’ll soon come to realize that this routine is not sustainable. So for those who are ready to end their college procrastination, here are three life hacks to get you back on track.
Get Organized
A huge part of buckling down and getting work done is the environment you’re in. Having a tidy and orderly work space will help you focus more on the task at hand as opposed to getting distracted by things around you.
There are a lot of aspects that contribute to the atmosphere of a space, like scent, temperature, familiarity and more. For your dorm or bedroom, try these tips for making the area comfortable and conducive for your academic juices to flow.
Segment Your Time
Carolyn Gregoire, contributor to the Huffington Post, recently reported on a study done on procrastination. It was found that people are more likely to complete tasks quicker if they are thought of in smaller amounts of time. For example, instead of thinking, “I have three days to finish this assignment,” think “I have 72 hours to finish this assignment.”
The study claims that by thinking about your task as something that needs to be done in an immediate timeframe, you will pay more attention to it than you would have if you thought it was something that was further off. This granular thought process can work wonders for chronic procrastinators.
Rise Above the Fear of Failure
Many procrastinators hold off on doing work because of the fear of failure. According to Gregory Ciotti, contributor to Life Hacker, the fear of failure is actually one of the four pillars of procrastination, which also includes low task value, personality, and expectations.
Ciotti states that the fear of failure is really about a lack of confidence in your abilities to satisfactorily complete the task in front of you. To overcome this fear, you’ll have to be confident that you can do well while also being forgiving to yourself if you fall a little short.
A small amount of procrastination isn’t bad. It can give you the drive and motivation you need to get down to work. But when this procrastination goes overboard, your studies can suffer. To avoid this, try using some of the tactics mentioned above to bring your procrastination to a healthy level.