Gabrielle Larocque

October 18,2017

Procrastination is something most teenagers are a victim of. Most people would rather stay in bed instead of working on school work, or doing chores. Whether you overcome it quickly, or it sets you back hours, it impacts your daily life. So, how do you overcome procrastination? It’s something most people think is impossible. Here are a few things that can help you get your work done.

Procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something. It is when you avoid difficult tasks, and look for distractions. It is a display of how much self control a person has over their tasks and work. Many people give excuses to why they are procrastinating. They might say, “I will do it tomorrow” or “ I don’t feel like it”. They also might think they work better under pressure, so they use that as an excuse for why they are putting the work off.

Procrastination is when the value of doing something else outweighs the value of working on what needs to be done. It is based on how much you care about the one task. Some say they procrastinate when they don’t care, but others say they procrastinate even when they care about a project. People are irrational with how they value things. They devalue things such as work based on time. This is called delay discounting.

        Task completion is a product of motivation, not skill or ability. So you can be really good at writing an essay, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t going to procrastinate. If you aren’t motivated to do something, you most likely will put it off until last minute.

        The first thing that you can do to stop procrastination, is to remove yourself from distracting situations.This may be putting your phone in a different room,moving away from distracting friends, or keeping your tv off. These “productivity killers”, are called antecedents. By doing this step, you will have nothing to pay attention to beside the task.  Another thing you can do is break the project into smaller more manageable pieces. This will help, because people tend to put off things that cause them stress because they think they can’t get it done.

Remind yourself of the consequences. Think about what might happen if you don’t do the work, so it can encourage you to get it done. Think of the things that you will be able to do after you finish the task , these can be the things that were distracting you in the first place. Make it seem like you will get a reward after you finish the work. You can finish that book or talk to that friend, after you get your work done.

Procrastination is something that can constantly stop you from getting to that finish line and accomplishing. Whether a small task, or a big project, you want to be able to push past the block in your mind. Following these tips, will hopefully make you succeed.\