Something that I have gained over this past junior year is severe procrastination. It happened slowly through the course of November till now and it’s affected a lot of things, such as not getting my work done or procrastinating my class work which in turn has affected my mental health, which affected my grades.
I wasn’t always like this though, before my junior year I was never really that much of a procrastinator, but more of a, “do the things you need to do before you rest” type of person. I would always get my homework, projects or study for tests before I even thought about touching my electronics or even showering. (I would always get so stressed about my assignments that I would do them right away. Things i would be thinking about when i wasn’t procrastinating was something like “i need to get this done or I’m gonna get a bad grade” or “this is gonna stress me out alot if I prolong it so might as well get it done”.
I started procrastinating, little by little. One detail I noticed that made me realize my procrastinating was bad was when I started procrastinating my workouts which is not something i would usually do. Before, I made it my top priority to workout and then do all my other assignments, but I started to shift my thoughts to things like, “I need to let my body rest; I’m too sore,” or “I’m just too tired to workout today”.
Other times, I would come home from school and tell myself to start working out, I would get ready to workout by putting up my pull up bar, but then i’d just get distracted by my phone or my PC and then it would just lead to a long time on social media which would then leave me no time to workout.
Another little thing that I started to do is say to myself that I would I have time to do it later, as I would think that I’d fast enough to be able to finish these assignments and because i think of these plans of how i’m going to finish them really fast but they never really pan out and end up just stressing me out more. This has led to a lot of time crunches, especially in journalism, which ironically enough, I’m rushing to finish this story right now.
To try and get back to my old ways of not procrastinating that much I tried some methods to help me get focused on my work and not on other things. My mindset in order to get back into the swing of things is just motivating myself like i would tell myself “If i don’t get this done it’ll just stress me out” or “if i dont get this done it will get in my way of relaxing or playing games” things like that.
The first thing that I do now when I get home is 5 minutes straight of my work, which usually gets me into a flow and helps me focus on my work for about an hour or two, which is usually enough time for me to get my work done.
Another thing that I’ve tried is not putting my phone in my room while I work but that hasn’t worked that well since I also have my PC in my room so instead of getting distracted by my phone, I get distracted by my PC instead.
This was something that I never expected myself to gain, as my parents have always told me to get my stuff done before it’s too late but I guess procrastination always comes to get you, even if you’ve spent all your life trying not to procrastinate.
