Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: The Epidemic of Student Procrastination

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Imagine you’re a current university student and you’ve just sat down for one of your weekly classes.

It’s estimated that 50% of all students procrastinate chronically. That corresponds to half of the room, so chances are either you or the person sitting next to you is a serial procrastinator.

This is a serious problem. And Fuschia Sirois, a professor of psychology at Durham and author of Procrastination: What it is, why it’s a problem and what you can do about it, further estimates that 15-25% of the wider population procrastinates frequently as well.

We all know the feeling. We sit down to our work confident that we’ll be productive…and then we decide we first need to make a cup of tea, check our emails, and maybe watch a couple videos. Soon enough, that work has become tomorrow’s problem.

The causes of such procrastination are also quite well-known, but they are often overlooked because the issue is mis-identified as laziness, or poor time-management. We tend to pathologise procrastination because it is a common behaviour, even though it is often rooted in deeper issues.

Reasons why we procrastinate

Tim Pychyl, a professor of psychology at Carleton University and founder of the Procrastination Research Group, describes procrastination as an “emotion-focused coping response”. Sufferers struggle to manage their emotions and instead regulate them externally. We take a task that might make us feel afraid, overwhelmed, or unmotivated and postpone it, instead eliciting a feeling of relief.

Biologically, this is caused by the amygdala, a set of neurons involved in emotional processing. When a potential threat is identified, the amygdala releases adrenaline to stimulate a fight, flight, or freeze response. This in turn overpowers the prefrontal cortex, the home of will power.

Many students will be particularly prone to such behaviour, since most will still be developing their emotional health, and because the prefrontal cortex is still developing in your early twenties. This is why Dr. Piers Steel, author of The Procrastination Equation, suggests students are both emotionally and biologically predisposed to procrastinate.

University life probably doesn’t help

What’s worse is that such problems can be exacerbated by students’ universities. Distractions abound in student life – this is an environment designed to be social, and that’s a good thing. But the combination of such distractions with the workloads many institutions impose, coupled with often inadequate support systems, further predisposes students to procrastinate. Why do your work when there’s so much of it, it’s likely to be hard, and there are so many other things to do?

This becomes a particularly tempting question when we lack an overarching reason for education. Today, we are commonly told we should study to become employable. Rishi Sunak, for instance, has vowed to gradually remove university degrees that do not improve students’ “earning potential”. The Prime Minister wants degrees to be assessed by numbers in graduate jobs and salary thresholds, with exceptions for employment with high social value.

This is not a bad idea, if your primary focus is to bolster the economy and public services. But the method does seem heavy-handed, and may give off the wrong impression. While it’s important for students to learn how to be employable, universities should also encourage you to develop your passions. When a student has a good, self-developed reason to study, they’ll be far more likely to work better, and get far more out of their university experience.

What can be done about procrastination?

So, procrastination is clearly an issue. It affects a large percentage of the population, and it’s not easy to deal with. Even when we know what to do, it’s difficult to bridge the gap between our reasoning and our emotional responses. In turn, chronic procrastination can have a serious impact on a sufferer’s health and career.

Fortunately, we know many of the causes of procrastination, and there are more self-help guides online than you will ever need – see, for example, Tim Urban’s famous TED talk.

Step one is understanding whether this is an issue you struggle with and, if so, your reason why. Then you can slowly get rid of any temptations and attribute a purpose to your work. And then… just start! The first step is always the hardest. Chances are, if you’ve managed to get to the end of this article, you’re already doing something right.

Step two is recognising that you’re not alone in being a procrastinator. The culture around the issue is changing and this needs to continue. Procrastination can be so frustrating, you can fall into this petty pace and continuously delay your work, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of! Especially if you’re a student, think about how many of your peers go through the same process. Think about how many famous procrastinators in history have still achieved great things. And remember, it certainly took this writer far too long to finish the article you’re reading.