Why do people procrastinate? All of us know that feeling – you’ve got a paper due tomorrow, but put on your favorite show because it’s more comfortable. I bet everyone has done this once in his or her life. Now, why is it so? Well, there are many reasons. Sometimes it’s because you don’t know the material very well, so why bother? Or you want to finish your work perfectly, without any mistakes – that takes lots of time. And then there are classes that are really boring or professors that are hard to understand. Or maybe you’re overworked and tired – sometimes all you need to relax is just a little rest. Then there’s procrastination that is actually not an act of laziness, like many people claim it to be – but rather lack of motivation. It all starts from a simple “I don’t want to this”, turns into “I can’t do this” and ends with “there is no reason for me doing it”. After some time, you’ll end up doing nothing. You won’t be able to find a reason for you doing anything, because there is no reason.

No matter what the cause of procrastinating is, it’s never a good thing. Prolonged procrastination means that you’re lacking something important – motivation or willpower to do things, knowledge needed for a task, or even interest in the material you’re studying. All of these lead to failure because without them it’s impossible to succeed. Try to figure out why are you putting stuff off – that will help you understand yourself better and improve your work ethic, so you won’t remain in the dark about what is going on. Second, don’t do anything at the last moment – it may work when you have 5 minutes left to write a paper, but try to finish your stuff earlier and you’ll see the difference. Third, there’s always something good that comes out of procrastination: when you’re in a rush, you’ll be more careful when writing that essay or studying for that test. So there is the positive side of things.

You must be careful when finding resources online or you may end up reinforcing your unhealthy behaviors, which in turn will only lead to procrastination becoming even more ingrained. Forget all of the self-help books and forget about expensive counseling sessions. Procrastination is a habit that can be broken, it just takes time and patience. Try taking one step at a time, make sure you keep each task achievable so your confidence doesn’t get shattered by the immense pressure of achieving grandiose goals. For example, if you’re struggling to finish work on time, try setting alarms throughout your workday to remind you of deadlines. If you struggle to stay focused on a single task, try blocking out distractions such as the internet so you can dedicate all of your focus to one thing at a time.