Procrastination, a word with a bad connotation, associated with laziness or irresponsibility. Many people hear time and time again, "don't procrastinate." I am a chronic procrastinator. I wait to do assignments, I wake up just in time to rush out the door to class, and I'm okay with it. "I need to stop procrastinating" is a commonly used phrase by us procrastinators. It can be stressful trying to write a paper and finishing minutes before the deadline. It's like sharks in a frenzy, disorganized and frantic. There are people who can thrive on being procrastinators and those who can't. If you hate being crunched for time, can't focus and shut down in times of stress, procrastination is not for you. If you can focus and work well under pressure, it might be for you.
In my eyes, procrastination can serve a functional purpose. Procrastinating for me helps with focus. I can tune out everything else and complete the task at hand. I don't like things to be long and drawn out. I like to get the down in one sitting. As a student, I tried to be more proactive with my time management skills. Starting assignments and getting them down early makes logical sense. For me however, giving myself 48 hours to complete a paper that will take me 3 hours to write is not practical. I have the time to scroll down twitter and investigate if Taylor Swift and Drake are really a couple, to take snapchat selfies because the lighting was good. The distractions seem amplified and more tempting than if I gave myself three hours to write a paper and finish it, or else.
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Procrastinating has boosted my productivity. Some see it as wasting time but I waste more time making poor attempts to get things done than I do when I have no choice anymore. I need the stress to push myself to get things done.
There is also the argument that procrastinating lowers quality of work. For those of us that can work under pressure, I'd disagree. The aftermath of procrastinating and trying to get things done force creativity. It forces your whole mind to be engaged in the task at hand. Some of my best art projects and essays I've written were late night 'this is due tomorrow' situations.
Where most people tell themselves "I won't procrastinate next time", I say the opposite. I tell myself to procrastinate things more. Writing and creating comes easier when I'm not so focused om everything else. Procrastinating allows for those distractions to be taken care off and put away for another time.
Procrastination has a reputation of the poor way to conduct work ethic and maybe it's true. Procrastination isn't just laziness, it is learning the best way to effectively work in a productive manner and sometimes that is to wait until the very last minute.
