It is 11:27PM as I am writing this. I officially have 32 minutes to finish this thing. Know what led me to this? That magical fifteen-letter word: procrastination.
I've been a procrastinator since...well, forever. If I have an enormous project due on Monday? Sunday night is the night for me!If twenty-five percent of my science grade is riding on this one paper that's due three weeks from now? I have three weeks! Time to draw and write and build things! If my test score depends on me reading "King Lear" for English class tonight? Eh, I'll do it tomorrow morning. I am genuinely every teacher's worst nightmare. I have put off every single assignment I got this year until the last minute. Every "A" was a last minute adventure, every "B" was a pressed-for-time project, and every "C" or lower grade was an late night escapade in my mind. Teachers (rightfully so) encourage their students to plan their time wisely, and do their homework when they can so they don't have to worry about it later. This has never worked for me.
I don't know what it is about waiting until the last minute that makes me work so well. My mind actually refuses to get down and dirty until about three hours before I know I either go to bed or go to school. This paper here? Yeah, I tried writing this about four hours ago. I couldn't even write my name, much less a well-formed paper. I can't focus until I know that I absolutely have to stop reading, or watching "Monty Python", or drawing squiggles all over my Spanish notebook. Even then sometimes, my mind just grinds to a halt and gathers cobwebs until it realizes, "Hey Emily! You've got an enormous project due in...seven hours? We can get started now! Nap time is over!" Generally, I work very efficiently during this time. I have no problem communicating my voice or my opinion to my target audience, my math concepts always make sense, and I can always find some sort of ridiculous pun in whatever I'm reading at the moment. It's during the day where I can't even tell people my favorite color.
I don't mean to say that this method has always paid off. Sometimes, I feel that the picture below accurately describes my existence.
Especially this year my brand of procrastination has been failing me. It's not that I don't work well under pressured circumstances any more, it's just that these pressured circumstances have become almost too pressured. Every teacher likes to think that their class is the most important in their students' lives. My Chem teacher loves to give us labs because she expects that we all have three hours every other day to pre-lab, analyze data, and make charts. Similarly, my math teacher loves to give out daily math homework because he feels that we should have an extra hour to do that. Add Academy homework, health work, and extracurriculars, and you have an exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed-out kid. I have felt nothing but stressed all year long and my homework habits have done nothing to help me. I feel slow and sluggish and generally out of it in every class I attend not because I'm disinterested, but because I am utterly overwhelmed by the amount of thinking, work, and comprehension demanded by every teacher. The only way I have managed to get by without having a breakdown is Stage Crew.
My thinking processes have stayed the same, I realize. I process things the same way, my views are very similar to what they were at the beginning of the year, and I generally write and analyze in a specific fashion. I just now realize that the way I execute my thinking, particularly in homework, needs a total makeover.
((ONE MINUTE LEFT!))
AS a fellow procrastinator, I know how you feel :( I also love the picture you included because I think it's so relevant. When you procrastinate, you feel bad, so you do something else to distract yourself and it snowballs. I'm ever so aware of the fact that I procrastinate wayyyyy too much, and I don't do anything about it. I'm not very good at working under stress, so I'm an extremely unproductive procrastinator, you on the other hand are lucky my friend.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I agree that sometimes it is almost impossible to do all of the homework we're assigned because you have about one hour from each class amounting to anywhere from 4-7 hours! Add the fact that I'm a procrastinator and I'm essentially screwed.
Like Emily, I am also an extremely bad procrastinator. I can definitely relate to this entire blog post, especially the second-to-last paragraph. I think the life of a teenager is really overrated–maybe that's selfish, but we have a lot going on. Between school and extra-curriculars and wanting to have a social life, there's barely enough time to sleep. Add on the hours upon hours of homework we are given every night, it's seemingly impossible to get everything done in just 24 short hours.
ReplyDeleteI think that we have become procrastinators because of this...Instead of efficiently working, we do other things because we know as soon as we start working, we'll get overwhelmed. It's easier to rush because then that's all you can think about...if you leave yourself enough time to do things well, you'll just be too stressed by the amount of work you have. Or maybe that's just me. But just like Emily, I work better last-minute. This is a terrible habit, but it's really all we can do to keep up with our crazy lives.