Essay on Pros and Cons of Procrastination

“Don’t put off until tomorrow what you could do to today,” a famous quote by Benjamin Franklin that will lead to today’s podcast.

Today will include a discussion of the consequences of procrastination. According to Dictionary.com, procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something. Many people struggle with planning and/or putting off things such as events, projects, going to the store, exercising, and doing homework. Little do people know the effects of their procrastination.

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Procrastination is something everyone does at some point in their life. It can have both negative and positive effects on one’s self. The people who experience this the most are students, but especially college students.

The first order of business is how procrastination affects someone’s life on a daily basis. The most obvious thing would be people would lose time. Wasting more time on one thing all at once is less beneficial than if someone did little bits over an extended period of time (lifehack.org). This could easily be fixed if someone were to use time management as said before and do less over an extended period of time. Wasting time can also lead to serious regrets in the future (lifehack.org). For example, if someone were to write an entire script for a podcast over time, it would turn out better than if someone were to do it all at once and give a sloppy, less planned version.

Another effect that procrastinating now would have is blowing opportunities (lifehack.org). If someone were to wait until the last minute to complete the objective, they could miss out on golden opportunities such as going out with friends, joining clubs, or playing sports. Constantly giving a poor work ethic would decrease the chances of getting a job or other advanced academic clubs. For instance, if someone were to be asked to go hang out at a football game but couldn’t because they put off their work until the last minute, they could be missing out on time with friends. Another great example would be if someone were to offer another person a job but instead of filling out the work application until the night it was due, they may not be picked because of their poor work ethic and poor time management skills, therefore they could not get the job. (lifehack.org)

If someone is a goal planner then they might know the struggle of this one. People who procrastinate are less likely to meet their goals (lifehack.org). This one is pretty self-explanatory, therefore not much has to be said about it. Basically, people forget or wait until they have to get something done instead of doing it ahead of time to reach simple goals such as writing three paragraphs per night. Some people won’t even do that because “It’s too hard” when in all reality they’re just lazy (lifehack.org).

If someone were to procrastinate often they would be more likely to make bad decisions(lifehack.org). Procrastination usually means taking the easy way out or holding onto the last minute and most people who procrastinate often tend to take the easy way out of things which leads us to our first point in poor decision-making. They would take the easy way out, the easy answer, anything that makes him have to worry and struggle less. A great example of this would be instead of listening to one’s mother as they tells them to drive their little, messy sister to school the next morning, they are working on a project they forgot about and are more likely to say yes although they didn’t realize when their mother was saying and immediately regret their decision in the morning. People would also make their decisions last minute such as being asked to go to a party and excepting a few hours before the party starts, therefore, running out of time to get presents, to bring whatever is needed to bring, and to get ready. (lifehack.org)

Procrastination can affect someone’s emotions as well. These emotions may include stress, anxiety, guilt, low self-esteem, and shame.

The most common emotional effect is stress. Stress can be the result of many other emotions and then could turn into something much more serious than a feeling in the body, anxiety which is a later topic. Stress comes from pressure put on them by someone’s boss, co-worker, teachers, doctors, and maybe even their parents. That causes someone to tense up and can make them procrastinate even more. Getting something done in time and worrying about the due date can cause even more stress on one’s self.

Anxiety kind of goes with stress. It’s a more serious type of worrying and stress. If someone constantly procrastinates, it can lead to anxiety.

Another emotion that will be affected if people constantly procrastinate is guilt. Most people would feel guilty about waiting till the last minute instead of planning ahead and not doing as well on it as they would have if they had planned it out. People also might feel when they make too many bad decisions and get down on themselves for it.

A common emotional effect of constantly procrastinating is low self-esteem. This would be felt when one thinks that everything is too hard and constantly gets down on themselves because they don’t understand anything. It could also come from not doing well and feeling like a failure. This could lead to feeling like they can’t do anything for themselves. For example, if someone were to get low grades on several assignments in one class then they would feel like they couldn’t succeed in that class. Eventually, it would result in low self-esteem.

Shame would go along with guilt and low self-esteem. After turning in an assignment that someone did not do their best on they could feel shame. Especially if it does not happen often. If someone is a procrastinator then they may not feel the same shame as someone who does not procrastinate often.

Surprisingly procrastination can have long-term physical consequences as well. Hypertension is caused by having a short tension span commonly associated with procrastination. Procrastinating many things at once will end in multiple things being done at once. If this is done constantly it can lead to procrastination.

Headaches may also be affected by procrastination. Overwhelming stress and anxiety will lead to headaches and migraines (psychologicalscience.org). Migraines in themselves can cause nausea or vomiting and extreme sensitivity to light and sound. Having too many migraines or headaches can alter the brain structure permanently. It can lead to brain lesions according to medicalnewscenter.org, “Every 10 seconds, a person in the US visits the emergency room as a result of a headache or migraine.” Bet nobody really knew that, now did they?

Insomnia is a common symptom of procrastination. It can be caused by the constant stress and pressure someone is under when they are procrastinating. Worrying about getting it done and not doing it can lead to nightmares and no sleep. When someone is trying to pull an all-nighter multiple days in a row they may not be able to sleep well for nights afterward.

The last couple of long-term physical effects procrastination has on the body are poor behaviors and obesity. Sirous is a scientist at Bishop’s University in Quebec who found that procrastination is linked with hypertension and cardiovascular disease. According to psychologicalscience.org, “Sirois identified two harmful coping strategies—behavioral disengagement (avoiding dealing with a looming problem) and self-blame—that might exacerbate stress, potentially contributing to poor health outcomes.”

Even though procrastination has several negative effects, there are also positive effects on it. Because someone is procrastinating but finally gets something done, they now have experience of how to manage delay. Knowing how to manage delay may include knowing when the thing someone is doing needs to be done, and knowing when to act the next time they have something to do. “The Greek philosophers highly valued procrastination and stated that it is good to learn to manage delay,”(psychcentral.com).

Something else that could happen is to prioritize. Finding out what is most important in life, can help someone act accordingly. People can clear their minds or just get their work off their minds and start working again on what they were doing. “By taking your time to think through some things – or think of nothing at all so that your mind can clear, you’ll discover the kernels of importance that reside in your mind and heart,”(psychcentral.com).

Knowing when things are due would cause people to get things done and turn them in sooner. Turning things in sooner would let them have more free time leading to being calm and ready for another assignment, and could cause less procrastination.

Getting behind in work and procrastinating can prevent someone from doing tasks that are unnecessary and maybe even bad. Even though falling behind makes everyone stressed and nervous about thinking they aren’t going to get anything done, it takes away the time someone wastes and could possibly change a negative thing in their life. While people do things to procrastinate, someone can stop having their hopes up to a point that is not possible, but high enough to be ok with it. “Sometimes people fear failing at a given task so they wait until the last minute to do it and then the quality of the finished product can be blamed on the deadline if it isn’t up to the highest standards,” (www.fastcompany.com).

Going back to getting things off the mind, having a to-do list, and getting it done, can help get the feeling of accomplishment so someone can do the big task that was being procrastinated. “... tending to the half dozen or so small items on someone’s list allows you to get a lot done, be more productive, and feel a sense of accomplishment. This might be all someone needs to then tackle that big one you’ve been putting off,” (psychcentral.com). Getting other things done that are smaller will calm the brain so that tackling the paper doesn’t stress someone out as much from the feeling of accomplishment.

People may think that procrastination is simply just holding something off till the last minute, but there are really several types of procrastination. People procrastinate for different reasons such as just trying to avoid the work, thinking you have plenty of time, making sure it is perfect, the one who just wants to have fun, and the person who dreams.

The person who tries to avoid work is scared because they think that what they are doing is unmanageable to them. “They would rather put off work than be judged by others when they end up making mistakes,” (www.lifehack.org). Making mistakes causes people to become stressed and makes it a harder thing to make someone start the work again.

There are several people who think that the deadline for their project is a long time away and think it is hard to start super early. In some cases, people have those tasks that don’t have deadlines to meet. “Chances are you have at least one item that you’ve been putting off for weeks if not months,” (alphaefficiency.com). This might include housework, so they think it is fine to just hold something back for a couple of days, but that couple of days may turn to weeks, then months. It then piles up on other tasks and makes them late and procrastinate even more.

One of the more major and common types is the perfectionist. Perfectionists pay attention to every little detail so it takes them much longer than a nonperfectionist They become afraid to start something new because they might miss a single detail. “The perfectionist is afraid to start a task because they get stressed out about getting every detail right,” (www.lifehack.org). The fear is the part that makes the perfectionist procrastinate to start.

While people get work done, these people hold back the work and have their fun and free time. The fun procrastinator always just pushes everything aside because they don’t want to do it, and then goes out with friends until they see that the paper is due. Many of these people think that there is much more than just sitting and doing paperwork. “The fun procrastinator would rather be doing anything except that one dreaded task,” (alphaefficiency.com).

Procrastination does have its ups and downs, but it still affects you and it can be in many ways as well. Some bad things can be physical or mental such as hypertension and stress. But there are always positives, and in this case, procrastinators can manage time and become creative with their schedules.