Essay/Term paper: Procrastination

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Philosophy

Procrastination


Jeremy Simmons
3rd hour

Procrastination is a universal everyday phenomenon that can seem little more
than clich‚, a small-talk joke or boast or complaint; we all do it, after all.
Yet a newly reported survey of students at a large urban university in the U. S.
is probably typical in that a majority (52%) of the students claimed a high or
moderate need for assistance with regard to procrastination which is more than
any other area of concern (www.info.wlu.ca). There are a great many causes to
the addiction to this thing called procrastination.

There are many underlying issues and causes of procrastination. Lack of
relevance and interest are two of the most common causes. While perfectionism
(having extremely high standards which are almost unreachable) is another.
Evaluation anxiety, ambiguity, fear of failure and self-doubt, fear of success,
inability to handle the task, lack of information needed to complete the task,
environmental conditions, physical conditions, and anxiety over expectations
that others have of you, are all very serious causes of procrastination.

Poor time management is a great cause of procrastination. Procrastination means
not managing time wisely. You may be uncertain of you priorities, goals and
objectives. You may also be overwhelmed with the task. As a result, you keep
putting off your academic assignments for a later date, or spending a great deal
of time with your friends and social activities, or worrying about you upcoming
examination, class project and papers rather than completing them.

There are quite a few people that have difficulty concentrating. When you sit
at your desk you find yourself daydreaming, staring into space, looking at
pictures of your boyfriend/girlfriend, etc., instead of doing the task. Your
environment is distracting and noisy. You keep running back and forth for
equipment such as pencils, erasers, dictionary,
etc.(www.wings.buffalo.edu/student-life/ccenter/Stress/procras.bro). Your desk
is cluttered and unorganized and sometimes you sit or lay on your bed to study
or do your assignments. You probably notice that all of the examples that you
just read promote time wasting and frustration.

Our behavioral patterns are another cause of procrastination. Getting started
on an unpleasant of difficult task may seem impossible. Procrastination is
likened to the physics concept of inertia - a mass at rest tends to stay at rest
(www.ucc.vt.edu/stdysk/procrast.html). Greater forces are required to start
change than to sustain change. Another way of viewing it is that avoiding tasks
reinforces procrastination which make it harder to get things going. A person
may be stuck, too, not by the lack of desire, but by not knowing what to do.

Procrastinating is a great problem amongst the student bodies of schools today
as well as the work force of the U. S. In this paper I have discussed the very
serious many causes of procrastination.