All around the Internet, you will see countless websites and videos teaching you about how to beat procrastination. Many of them will say the same things like visualize your goals, ask yourself why are you doing it and all that stuff that you'll most probably only do once and never again. However as students, we are all experts in the art of procrastination as we tend to put off our work and rush it all at the last minute. As SAM students, we are loaded with piles and piles of work, 2-3 SATs and assignments each week, clubs and not to mention our own lives! However, instead of taking the effort to finish our work efficiently, we tend to procrastinate and push everything to the last minute.
Actually procrastination is one topic that was rather hard for me to put into words. Well, that's because I procrastinated while writing this! Throughout this very annoying process of denial and self-guilt, I gathered a list of things to help deal with procrastination!
Firstly, you can pace around or go for a walk. After about an hour or two of sitting at your desk, you will tend to feel the need to get up and stretch your legs. Just by getting up and walking around your workplace or classroom can actually make you live longer! Believe it or not, studies shown that sitting for extended periods of time can lead to an early death. So just get up and walk around! Pacing around actually has a calming effect and is also one of the best times to think. Taking a stroll not only improves your health, it also keeps you active, hence more oxygen to your brain! If someone like your parents or person in charge asks you what you are up to, here's a great answer “I’m saving my life." (Being rude is not encouraged). The walk can vary from 10 minutes to 30 minutes; it all depends on how fast you want to get back to that boring and tedious assignment of yours. I found that walking in circles around one of the library’s desks is the most soothing, minus having everyone there going ‘what’s wrong with that guy?’.
Social Media! The best invention of our time includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter you name it. All forms of social media are different but entertaining because it has you mindlessly scrolling through people's lives. That's always fun! Especially when you think your life really sucks because you don't want to do that one math folio. It's always nice stalk your friends that are going through the pain of SAM work and laugh as you realise that they are procrastinating too. However, social media is a great way of finding motivation to work as well. There are tons of motivational pages on twitter to help get you in the mood. On top of that, going on YouTube is one of the most common things people do while procrastinating. Have you ever heard someone say, “Get on YouTube to watch the video your friend sent, ends up 3 hours later learning how to speak giraffe??” That's exactly what YouTube can do to you. Well, it's not all bad; YouTube is another platform with a bunch of sources to aid in our quest of beating procrastination. There is a channel on YouTube called College Info Geek where the host, Thomas Frank would give tips and help you work more effectively in college. These apps and websites tend to be the first thing we go to when we pick up our phone to procrastinate so it's kind of impossible to leave them out. With that said, we might as well use them for the forces of good.
Miscellaneous activities that promotes rest are one of the many ways to keep yourself busy avoiding your future. Have you sat down too long? Don't feel like walking? Go lie down! You can lay anywhere, your couch, your bed, your desk, the floor, anywhere. Besides that, you can also go do stuff like open the fridge in your kitchen over and over again. Oddly enough, no matter how many times you open the fridge, it doesn't seem to get boring. Bonus for opening the fridge is that you might get a nice snack. If someone judges you for eating so much, the go to response should always be ‘I’m a SAM student, give me a break!’. It’s always important to clear your mind once in a while. This is to avoid a huge mental breakdown, safety first guys!
Complaining is one of the most relieving and relaxing things to do when you are stressed out. This in fact, may the one of the most common things you will hear from someone in SAM. Venting to someone about how much you don't want to do something is one of the best feelings ever. On the other hand, that person might also provide some solutions for you to complete that tedious task of yours faster or more efficiently! So yay for teamwork! Or, the both of you (maybe more) can just sit around laughing at memes all day, forgetting college was even a thing. It doesn’t always have to be like that though; group studying is a great way to beat procrastination. The team can not only support each other in weaker areas but also push each other to continue working. Sometimes, a little competitiveness is all we need to get ourselves to work.
Lastly, planning is actually one of the most important ways of avoiding procrastination. I don’t mean planning as in, “oh ok, I’m going to study legals today.” No no. I mean “I’m going to revise part 1 and 2 of topic 1 of legals. Then I am going to finish on my ESL paper.” Be as specific as you can and don’t put in words like “try” or “hope” because that will immediately set you up to fail. At the end of the day, when you are sitting there pondering life, you will convince yourself that you tried, when the fact stands that you didn’t try hard enough. Alright, a little disclaimer, over planning is a bad thing and we are all prone to that. Furthermore, it’s not a lost cause when you didn’t finish the day’s plans. Even so, detailed planning will be a push in the right direction.
Yes, it is hard to do something we don’t enjoy or is tough. Procrastinating becomes the drug to relieve the pain of college assignments. (Procrastination is like a drug, don’t deny
it) but if it is possible for you to pull out one day and be super productive, reward yourself and realise that, hey, I feel so accomplished! Honestly, that is one of the best feelings in the world!