One thing that blocks people from achieving success is procrastination. Many people push things back regardless of their situation, and cause themselves more trouble than they already had. Procrastination is a very common mistake people make, but what causes us to do it? No person would intentionally make themselves worse off but procrastination is a sure way to so. All people have experienced themselves putting things off to the last minute at one time or another but some are always doing so. What makes someone continuously hurt themselves and decrease their chance of success. While most people will have the consciousness to properly prior plan, others don’t.
Nearly 20% of people have considered themselves to be chronic procrastinators. There is many reasons for someone to procrastinate, but there is also reasons these people consistently do it. The reason for procrastination is actually psychologic and in every human’s mind. The feeling and thought of doing something unpleasant is something everyone knows, but affects people differently. Procrastinators are not born, they learn to use excuses to put off doing things they need to. Procrastinators can be a product of being around other procrastinators. In this article https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200507/why-we-procrastinate written by Hara Marano, she explains many of these factors. There are 3 main types of procrastinators all different in small ways, but for the same reason. One type are people who feel a rush and excitement of having little time to do something. This reason occurs for a smaller amount of people, but some feel they work better under pressure of being rushed when in reality nobody does. Another type are people who can’t decide whether or not they want to do something and push it back to the last minute to eventually do the task, or not do it at all. The last type of procrastinators I believe is the most common. These type of procrastinators are afraid of failing and not being up to par with their task. They use this as a way to have an excuse to fail, having their excuse for failing to be a lack of effort instead of a lack of ability. All reasons come back to the underlying fact that people don’t enjoying doing unpleasant things. Furthermore, procrastinators put things off to the last minute consequently hurting themselves, it is not a permanent disability but with proper practice anyone can learn to not procrastinate.
I really like how you explained that procrastination can be done in different ways. I struggle with procrastinating. A big thing that has helped me lately is to think about how much more stressed I get when I put things off. This does not completely fix my problem usually, but it does give me a little motivation. I thought this article about the negative effects it can have on our lives was really interesting.
I had and still have the same problem as Walt does with regards to ADHD and procrastinating, but this blog broaden my understanding that procrastination is such a diverse thing. I’m happy that you brought up procrastinating as stemming from not wanting to do something unpleasant, yet where does that come from? Does our brains do something differently when we’re either excited or uninterested in something? In the beginning of time humans had to work to survive, but it got lost along the way through the years somehow. I would of recommended that you used more the history of procrastinating and mention studies that determined how researchers were able to break up procrastinators into three separate groups.
This blog post is very relevant, and it was interesting to learn that there are three types of procrastinators. I think I am either the second or third type, or maybe a combination of the two. I think that a lot of the time people procrastinate doing their work because they simply don’t want to do it and want to spend their time how they want, which usually includes sleeping or watching Netflix. Procrastination is a huge problem among college students, and it all comes down to time management, which is another huge problem among college students.
Here is the link to an article about why procrastination is bad for you: http://www.b2bnn.com/2015/04/procrastinate-at-work-its-bad-for-your-health/
I for one used to “procrastinate,” but my procrastination was due to having ADHD. Having ADHD and not being diagnosed at an early age led my parents to constantly think I deliberately put of my work. In reality, however, it was my inability to focus and my tendency to forget about my assignments until I neared the deadline. In this case, my procrastination was more of a nature reasoning rather than nurture like your post suggests.
The issue that you wrote this blog on is very prevalent in our lives here at Penn State right now. I think you could have done a better job expanding your thoughts and given a study of why 20% of people consider themselves chronic procrastinators. Its a good blog overall, but if you gave a study to back it up, then it would be even better.
I wrote a similar blog post on this issue. I like the fact that you included the different types of procrastination styles in this post. procrastination isn’t black in white, many third variables can come into play, such as class type and interest in the subject.