Procrastination is something that I have done during my middle and high school years. During those years, there were a few times that I waited and waited to review on the last night before the actual test. Every time I procrastinated, not only did I feel so stressed about the amount of work I had to absorb and memorize, but I also felt so regretful for not reviewing it in advance. Hence, I was very ashamed and felt so certain that I might fail my test. However, sometimes it surprises me that most of the test scores come out satisfactory or even better grades because I was able to remember what I memorized and answer the majority of the test questions. Therefore, I thought ‘procrastinating’ was not the worst method to study for a test. Until I learned a unit about Memory from a psychology elective class this month, I was pondering to what extent procrastinating aids our memory, and what keeps people continue to procrastinate.
In a psychological aspect, procrastination means “the tendency to put off work that must be completed to attain the goal” (Procrastination). Procrastination, in my perspective, has to do with absorbing large amounts of materials as much as possible in a limited amount of time.
How does procrastination help memorize? As mentioned before, I procrastinate right before the test day, which I spend around evening to late midnight, which is a short amount of time to study as much as I can. In order to study effectively in a limited amount of time, I tried to talk out loud about a particular topic and repeat it multiple times until I felt confident that I was familiar with it.
According to the study “Procrastination and Memory” by the University of Florida, it states that procrastination unintentionally enhances short-term memory. Moreover, the theory of Atkinson and Shiffrin's model of memory may also justify that procrastinating benefits short-term memory to a certain extent. This is possible because the way I procrastinate, which is reviewing and repeating or speaking the information out loud, can be seen as I am constantly encoding the information and processing it into my sensory memory by reading, talking out loud, and then listening to myself. After repeating these steps repetitively, the information is able to transfer to short-term memory and then long-term memory if the information is adapted enough to be consolidated.
In spite of that, I found out that I forgot the information very quickly after I finished the test. This suggests that the process of encoding the information ends very soon that it is highly possible to quickly fade away from our memory storage. For instance, after the test, I forgot everything I studied because I had no motivation and I was too lazy to study again for the next exam. Although the retrieval, getting the information out of memory storage back to consciousness awareness (textbook), of the information helps me memorize faster than before, I will barely even think about it until the night before the next test. This means I will procrastinate again since I felt ‘too lazy’ to study again. This implies that procrastination is seldom practiced on a daily basis, which also infers that the information is out of consciousness for the majority of regular routine.
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In conclusion, procrastination may effectively boost memorization in short-term memory but only stays temporary. Also, I would say as one of the procrastinators, it is almost impossible to encode information in long-term memory since there is a lack of regular rehearsals that leads to memory consolidation.
I think my case is similar to most of the students because I’ve witnessed many of my students who were also procrastinating frequently. They and I felt regretful and stressed, but why do we still procrastinate?
The answer to this is relevant to our emotions. Oftentimes, it is the emotion that overwhelms the procrastinators’ ability to self-regulate (Pathan). For me, whenever I think about complex work, it will make me feel very anxious. Then, I wanted to avoid this feeling and instead spend more time watching a movie so that I could feel pleasure. Ruhr University Bochum states that procrastinators have a relatively larger amygdala. The amygdala is part of the brain that releases fear and aggression. Therefore, people with a large amygdala may frequently hesitate and are likely to put things off. Nonetheless, Dr. Tim Pychyl suggests that research was conducted that a brain can improve through meditation which helps shrinkage of the amygdala and better connect with the pre-frontal cortex which leads to more efficient self-control (Pathan).
After researching why people nonstop procrastinate, I learned that I was procrastinating because I wasn’t able to handle the anxiety and avoided it by doing something desirable. Before I even think about fixing my bad habit, I should first stabilize my emotions and not panic about the amount of work I have to do.
From learning psychology, I am amazed that many concepts we learned are already applied to our real life in diverse aspects. I was able to reflect on my own psychological consciousness by relating to the theories I learned from the class. According to this reflection, I was able to reflect on how procrastinating affects my brain memory and why I would continue to procrastinate. Therefore, I think it is clearer for me to plan to change my habits.
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