procrastination- how do you get over it?

CrispyUK

Everywhere seems to be quite lax on late coursework, there's the 2% per day example mentioned above, Uni of Liverpool also have percentage penalties per day it's like and I'm sure there's others.

Here at University of Plymouth everything is electronically receipted when you hand it in and university policy is to issue an automatic mark of 0 if it's even a second late (unless valid extenuating circumstances).

Although I think I prefer it like this as you don't let things drag on and once the deadline has passed it's out the way whether you finished it or not.

And now I should really be getting on with one of the many deadlines I've got over the next 3 weeks, but I won't....

Catseyez

If our coursework is late, it's an automatic fail but can be re-submitted at a later date. But in that case, the maximum mark awarded is 40%, the minimum pass mark! Despite this, I still manage to leave everything until the 11th hour and reach the deadline by the skin of my teeth!

Catseyez

princess_sarah wrote:

Hi everyone, I'm quite new to MSE but I'm just gonna jump right in here...

I know all of the advice in this thread, but I still cannot force myself to do the work!

At my uni, we have a penalty of 2% every day that your essay is late. I currently have two essays at the 20% penalty mark and I haven't even started.

They're only 2000 words and they are so easy to me. I could probably write a good essay within about 6 hours start to finish, but I do not.

I sometimes even decide not to go into lectures, so I force myself to work on my essays, but I just end up doing the washing, or tidying around the house.

It's gotten so bad that I can hardly bare to get out of bed in the mornings. Life has sucked hard recently, lots of death about, and I just find I can't see a meaning in doing any of my essays. It seems so unimportant. And every day I leave it, it gets worse and worse.

I just don't know how to get over it. If i force myself to get up and gather my books, after about 5 minutes I fall asleep anyway, so now I know that if I try I'll waste the day in unconciousness.

I don't know how to explain any of this to anyone at school who could help. I've done the school counsellors before but evidently, its completely unhelpful. I feel like if I could just get off the hook this one time, it would all be okay, but it's too late.

Have any of you been through procrastination as bad as this?

Princess_sarah: I used to be just like that when I was going through my A-levels. The underlying reason was that I didn't want to do them and didn't want to go to univeristy at the time. I felt that I was being pushed into it by my family/teachers etc.

Years later I'm now at univeristy and doing a subject that I absolutely love (social work). It's got purpose and will lead to a job at the end of it. I'm still a terrible procrastinator but my motivation to qualify and the importance I place on it, leads me to get the work done. I'm still in the first year and our marks don't go towards our final mark. I know that once they do, I will stop leaving everything until the last minute as I want to do well.

My advice is to ask yourself why you're at university and why you're studying the subject that you've chosen. Could it be that you feel pushed in to it and would perhaps prefer doing something else?

Catseyez

studentphil

It is hard though if are at university and it turns out that you really hate it to stay motivated to do you work.

However, still do not get why anyone would hand stuff in late for no reason as you are just going to have marks knocked off.

princess_sarah_2

In my family, it was never an option NOT to go to university. I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I picked something that sounded interesting but I had no experience with.

I did the first 3 years already, and everyone else I know is done with their course, but I still have a fourth year. Everyone else is getting on with their lives and getting awesome jobs, but I am still doing a course that I don't know why I picked it. There's just 16 more hours of lessons until I'm done, so I'm sticking with it now. It's just so hard to motivate myself into essays.

I love exams but hate essays. If only my course was just assessed on exams!

I don't know why I can't get them in on time. They always get done eventually. I wish my uni had a policy of giving 0% for late things, because then I know none of my work would be late. It would motivate me. But with a small penalty per day, you start off thinking its okay if you're just a day or two late... and then with each essay you see bigger deductions and more and more reasonable!

Topsy1_2

Hmm, I've got 2 assignments, each approx 2500 - 3000 words, due in by 15th March, and a third of equal length due in by 23rd March. :eek:
Plus I have to write two appeal letters for daughter's failed 11+, sort out pigsty of a house, (my sitting room looks like a laundry at the moment), deal with insurance company about my possibly written off car, and go through all my piled up, un-opened post in order to accurately assess what little money I have, and how to go about getting more money... I wanna be a Debt Free Wannabee!!!

Oh, and my course tutor told me I was a serial procrastinator in my tutorial last week. Guess no chance of any extensions then... :rolleyes:

Snow_Angel

Topsy1 wrote:

Hmm, I've got 2 assignments, each approx 2500 - 3000 words, due in by 15th March, and a third of equal length due in by 23rd March. :eek:
Plus I have to write two appeal letters for daughter's failed 11+, sort out pigsty of a house, (my sitting room looks like a laundry at the moment), deal with insurance company about my possibly written off car, and go through all my piled up, un-opened post in order to accurately assess what little money I have, and how to go about getting more money... I wanna be a Debt Free Wannabee!!!

Oh, and my course tutor told me I was a serial procrastinator in my tutorial last week. Guess no chance of any extensions then... :rolleyes:

• Ok, you can't afford to procrastinate with your daughter's education, so sit down and write those letters now......do that first and post them off. Done!
• Then tidy your house - I know people use it as an excuse to do something other than study, but i genuinely believe there's no point attempting to study when your environment is disorganised.
• Tonight, with a cup of tea after your daughter is in bed, go through all your post and get it sorted. DO NOT put letters to one side ... do the 'touch them once' rule! i.e. open them and act on them/file them straight away.
• Then write your essays - do them one at a time rather than trying to do all 3 and panicking.

You can do it....just think how important all of this is for your daughter's future. good luck.

Topsy1_2

ooooooh, I so know you're right..

Just got back from picking them up from the childminders, once they're sorted, I'll get cracking. Want to try tick off at least the first three on that list tonight.

ok, where did I put the coffee?!

GeologyRocks

I'm a chronic procrastinator too, and I hate it.

It took me months to get most of the way through a book on procrastination (then gave up on it), although it tells you reasons why you might do it, it still takes sheer willpower to stop doing it. Which I just don't have.
It seems worse now that I know exactly what I could do to stop procrastinating, but still can't seem to do it! The book motivated me for ooh... minutes after reading it, but then I'd go to bed and wake up the next morning and everthing is back to usual.

I have procrastinated since secondary school, at least. Maybe before. I think it might have something to do with 2 things:
1) I was a smart child. I was told this. Maybe I thought I therefore didn't need to bother as things would turn out ok (and they usually did).
2) Procrastination is rewarding. Or it used to be at least. It's great when you do an assignment at the last minute and still get a good mark. You end up getting a big head about how you must be smart to have managed to pull that off.
#2 doesn't really work any more. A combination of 3rd year uni work not being the kind of thing you can sucessfully do the night before, and years of excessive student drinking killing brain cells I think.

I could have easily got a 1st if I had managed to get over my procrastination but now I'll stuggle to get a 2:1 and will most likely get a 2:2. Which just makes me feel like s**t. I've been at uni 2 years longer than everyone else (repeated 2 years) and it seems like I've wasted several years of my life and not acheived anything.

My uni does the 'zero for late work' thing. If it did the penalty thing I don't think it'd be any better, as I think I'd work out a percentage I'd be ok with losing, and then procrastinate until the night before that day was.

Going to the library worked for me (to an extent) in my first year(s) :rolleyes: but now I live further away and kid myself into thinking I'll get work done at home (then end up surfing the web all day). Also, when I go to the library I find it hard to concentrate. I read the words but my mind drifts and nothing goes in, so I have to re-read... and eventually give up as I'm not getting anywhere. I'm sure this isn't helped by the "look how intelligent and long my sentences are" writing styles of the books that this post described perfectly:

apoorstudent wrote: »

An example of what really pis!es me off about academic writing:

'Modern rationality is exemplified by the proliferation of large scale organizations, as really began around Weber's time.'

I'm sure it means something really simple, but why can't they just say it how it is? Is this a deliberate ploy to make me feel stupid? Having looked up each word separately, I'm still none the wiser. Is it any wonder that I avoid studying at all cost?

I end up getting really tired whenever I sit down to do some serious work, will probably be in bed by 11pm. But if I'm playing videogames or surfing the web, I can easily stay up til about 5am or later. Regardless of what time I woke up that day, be it 7am or 3pm.

Catseyez wrote: »

Well,I finished mine at 2pm today and the cut off was 5pm!

I remember 'finishing' (or doing all I can given the time) at 3:35pm when the assignment deadline was 3:30pm. Luckily there are always a lot of other students doing the same thing so they let you off for being a few mins late.

jago25_98 wrote: »

There is proof of this. A computing graduate once submitted an article to a Geology journal and got it published. Not such a big deal until you relise the paper was written by a computer program using lexical patterns and jargon!

:rotfl: Have you got a link?

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

Like lots of you, I find other things to do when I should be studying - whether its reading on here, cleaning the kitchen/bathroom etc, or cooking, food shopping etc! I normally find something 'useful' I should be doing instead of studying, even though I know I have to knuckle down and get it done!
..........
Is it possible to stop being a procrastinator, or is it genetic or something?

Oh yes. The procrasination tidyup. I convince myself I'll work better in tidy surroundings. Which is true, if the work actually happens after that, which it rarely does.

Procrasination being genetic is an interesting theory. If it is, why oh why didn't I get my mum's "super-motivated, never leaves things to the last minute" gene? My dad procrastinates, as does my brother.

Sorry to hear about your problems, princess_sarah.
I've had trouble getting out of bed lately too. LTR breakdown and other things... that don't really motivate me!
I've tried counsellers too... it's not for me. I want someone to help me work out what's wrong. I don't want just have to ramble on for an hour then have to attempt (and fail) to work it out myself, leaving feeling worse than when I went in.


Sorry, this has been an essay of a post. I wouldn't be suprised it if takes a while for some of the posters on this thread to tackle reading it

I'm sure the ratio of procrastinators to non-procrastinators who are members of forums/newsgroups is higher than the ratio of procrastinators to non-procrastinators who aren't...

ames123_2

Wow you procratinized a lot to write that hehe!
I think most people do it, including me. I'm going to the library in a bit to do some reading and take notes for an essay in on Monday, but I won't stay there that long. I can't work here in my room, I get distracted too easily. Quickly checking facebook turns into hours! Has anyone got any tips on studying in the library because I need to go there a LOT next week because have other essays to do after i've handed the one in on Monday in?

I like your book you were reading on procratinising but you didn't finish it hehe! Also like your username - Ross in Friends had it on his backback when he was a kid, but you probably didn't get it from there?

Anyway I need to have some lunch then get myself down to the library! x