Essay Example #1
Procrastination is a behavior that can have far-reaching consequences, both in our personal and professional lives. It can lead to feelings of guilt and anxiety, while also limiting our ability to achieve our goals. But what causes procrastination and how can we overcome it? In this essay, I will explore the psychological and emotional factors driving procrastination, exploring strategies that can help us break the cycle of delay. I will examine the cost of procrastination and discuss how a shift in mindset can help us overcome our delaying habits, so we can lead more fulfilling lives.
Exploring the Causes of Procrastination: Is It Reasonable?
Procrastination can lead to stress, frustration, and dissatisfaction with life in general. There are many reasons why people procrastinate: fear, perfectionism, lack of motivation, and lack of focus are just a few. These reasons are explored below.
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Fear Rules
One of the main causes of procrastination is fear. People may be afraid of failure, rejection, or the unknown, and so they put off tasks to avoid confronting these fears. For example, someone who is afraid to talk to his crush might put off doing so until he feels more confident about asking her out. This fear can interfere with task completion because it distracts you from your work - you're so busy worrying about the outcome that you forget what it takes to get there in the first place!
While some people are fearful of failure, others fear success. They view it as an opportunity to be more in the public eye and have more responsibilities. They don't want to let the people they love down and they worry that they won't be able to keep up with what others expect of them. They just don't feel like they're good enough or that they deserve all of the accolades that come their way. Both types of procrastinators are essentially avoiding taking action because they're afraid.
The truth is that you can only control your own actions, not how others react to them. If you want something badly enough, don't let your fear hold you back from doing something positive toward achieving your goal, whether it's failing or succeeding.
Bad Is Better Than Nothing
Other people find it easier to do a bad job than no job at all. These people are often perfectionists who have trouble getting organized and starting or finishing tasks, so they put off their work until the last minute. The problem with this approach is that perfectionism isn't always possible, especially with time limits. So delaying until the last minute means there's less time available for improvement and refinement of your work product before presenting it as finished. And if you're continually putting off getting started on projects because they aren't perfect yet, then eventually nothing will ever be finished!
People who strive for perfection may delay starting a task because they want to ensure that it is done perfectly, which can lead to paralysis by analysis. They may spend hours trying to figure out the best way to do something instead of just jumping in and learning along the way.
Always Later
If you like to put off work until the last minute, there's a good chance that you don't see what's the point of working now if there's more work coming up soon anyway. It's not that you want to procrastinate — it just doesn't seem worth it to start something when there's so little time left, and when it'll just be followed by more of the same. The word "procrastination" comes from Latin pro ("forward") + crastinus ("of tomorrow"). Some people do this on purpose, but most don't realize they're putting things off until it's too late.
How To Escape From Procrastination?
Procrastination can be an extremely frustrating and disruptive problem. It can interfere with work and school, as well as with our personal lives. Fortunately, there are strategies for overcoming procrastination. One of the most effective strategies is to break tasks down into smaller, more manageable steps. This can make the task feel less daunting and more achievable. Another strategy is to set clear goals and deadlines for each step of the task. This can help to create a sense of urgency and motivate people to get started.
Furthermore, people can try to eliminate distractions and create a focused work environment. This may involve turning off electronic devices, finding a quiet space to work, or using time-management techniques such as the Pomodoro Technique.
Conclusion
Therefore, procrastination can have significant negative impacts on our personal and professional lives. As explored in this essay, the causes of procrastination can range from fear of failure to lack of motivation and poor time management skills. However, the consequences of procrastination are clear: stress, anxiety, decreased productivity, and poor performance.
Fortunately, there are strategies that can help us overcome procrastination, such as breaking tasks into smaller, more manageable parts, setting specific goals, and creating a supportive environment. By taking action and overcoming procrastination, we can achieve our goals, increase our productivity, and lead fulfilling lives. The cost of delay is high, but by recognizing the causes and consequences of procrastination, we can break the cycle and become more productive, successful, and fulfilled individuals.
Essay Example #2
Picture this: I'll get homework on a Friday, maybe some maths questions and a practice essay for English, doable, right? I won't do it that Friday night because well plain and simple, I don't want to. The next morning I'll wake up and spend the whole Saturday doing things and by the time I sit down it's 6 pm and well it's too late now so I push it to Sunday. Bad decision, fast forward to 10 pm Sunday, and I'm stuck on the thesis of my essay, so I automatically go into panic mode and I am instantly filled with feelings of regret and anger towards myself. I begin to hope that the teacher for some miraculous reason won't collect them the next day and ill be fine, from experience this is never the case. This is what I like to call the art of procrastination.
An example. In the 5 weeks that I had to write this speech, I thought it smart to leave it until the last minute and write it 3 days before it was due placing immense stress on myself to get it done and have it memorized on time. Why ? because I'm really good at procrastinating, id even go as far as to say it's one of my skills.
Procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something, in other words baking a batch of cookies and binging a whole season of a show on Netflix all instead of writing that essay that's due in 2 days simply because you believe you'll get it done on time, spoiler alert, you probably won't. The word procrastinate literally comes from the Latin word procrastinare, which directly translates to ‘put off until tomorrow.’ On very rare occasions I’ll start the assignment early or I’ll leave the assignment till the day before and stay up all night finishing it only to be filled with an instant feeling of regret asking myself why I hadn't just used my time wisely.
We can look at procrastinating like this, our brain is divided into 2 characters, our future self, and our present self. We make goals for our future selves like learning a new language, starting that health kick, or finishing that book so we, therefore, get excited over long-term rewards, but when it comes down to it, our present self is the one that actually has to take the action so we can eventually get there. So because our present self wants instant rewards and our future self wants long-term rewards they don't really blend well together. In a realistic scenario, the future self wants to go to the gym, whereas the present self wants to lay in bed and eat a Krispy Kreme donut. Or we’ll give our present self rewards that they don't really deserve, for example thinking that because you've opened a new google document and written the title of your essay, you deserve a break to go on your phone for 2 hours.
Although there are many reasons why we procrastinate the main ones are a lack of time management, lack of desire, and lack of motivation. Someone like me, with horrible time management skills, often starts never-ending cycles of planning to do things, putting them off then instead spending hours scrolling through Tik Tok only to realize that it's too late so I push it to tomorrow. It’s difficult to manage your time, and if you're one of those strange people who can, then I'm jealous, but we need to learn how to because it's the key to getting things done and getting them done effectively.
Another reason we often push things to do later is that we have formulated the idea that we need to be in a so-called ‘mood’ to complete mandatory things, which is why we often don't do things since that ‘mood’ doesn't show. As well as this, a lack of desire is what most commonly causes us to not do things because we may just simply not feel like doing it. This is understandable because I feel like everyone would rather spend their weekend outside having fun with their friends rather than writing their speech, unless they started it early and were smart, unlike me. Lastly, a lack of interest in the topic could cause you to procrastinate reading into it, which is often a situation I find myself falling into, because I mean, who really wants to write an essay on To Kill a Mockingbird? Even though this may be the case sometimes we are required to do things that we don't particularly want to do despite how boring or mundane the subject is.
Mainly it's just that huge tasks overwhelm us. We know that the task will be too big and time-consuming, so we push it to the back of our minds. There are three main ways to solve this problem. One is to break the time you spend on the assignment into small increments, for example, here is a possible schedule for a student who is told on February 1 that he has to hand in a scientific OEI paper by May 1: From February 1st to March 1st, we can think about the paper. From March 2nd to April 1st, we can think about it some more. Then April 30, the day before it's due, we can pull an all-nighter, including all the research and writing.
Solution number 2, in my opinion, a much simpler alternative, is to just forget about doing the paper then shortly before it's due go on one of those very trustworthy websites like freeessaysamples.com to find a very original essay. Or if all else fails, you could always just drop out of school, I mean Bill Gates did and I’d say he's doing pretty good for himself, but he did drop out of Harvard so I think he had to be just a bit smart to get in, so I don't really recommend option number 3.
Yes, procrastinators put off doing work, and at times just staring at the wall for up to 30 mins that do not mean they are lazy. There is a stark difference between laziness and procrastination. Lazy people choose not to do anything and are fine with it, procrastinators are aware that they have things to get done but simply do not have the motivation to get started with them. Although we often look at procrastination as being a bad thing, because of the overwhelming stress it puts on us, I happen to think that it's actually a good thing.
I mean we have to start that assignment at one point or another, and yes it would’ve been smart to start it earlier but weirdly I find there's something thrilling about starting it at the last minute, there's almost a sudden rush of adrenaline because the pressure of having to do it finally builds up and that's when all the ideas start to come and you end up working better in an emergency than what you would have done if you had started earlier. I like to justify my actions by simply reassuring myself that I will work faster and more efficiently if I wait till the last minute, which is sort of a fancy way of saying I don't want to do it now so I'll do it later.
After all, a quote that sums up my point perfectly is “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done daily.” I'll have to look into who said that but not today though, I'll do it tomorrow, or maybe next week.
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