Procrastination can be defined as the act of postponing something important until the last minute, often until the deadline starts glaring at you. For example, leaving your assignment unattended to until a day to the deadline.
It is one habit that eight out of 10 Nigerian students struggle with in school. From: “I will do it later” to “let me rest small” and: “I will do it by 6pm” to “heeyyy, it’s deadline already?
Interestingly, procrastination does not start at one stage. Tim North in his book: “The seven stages of procrastination,” listed out the stages through which people procrastinate.
The first stage is INDIFFERENCE. The assignment is not on your mind because you feel you have an entire week to do it so you don’t worry yourself about it. Here you are likely to say: “I have a long time to do it, so I will do it tomorrow.”
The second stage is DENIAL. Now the due date is getting closer and you have piles of workload to do but you focus on TikTok challenge and you assure yourself that you still have few more days to get it done. You will say: “I can’t believe that it’s almost the deadline, well I have few more days, I will do it.”
The third stage is REALISATION. Now the due date is getting closer and you can’t put off the work anymore. But you continue to relax and convince yourself that there is still time.
The fourth stage is PANIC. At this stage, reality sets in that you don’t have enough time and then cuss yourself out for not doing the assignment early.
The fifth stage is BARGAINING STAGE. At this stage, you make sacrifices in order to make sure that the work is done, which may include depriving yourself of sleep, quit watching television, not hanging out with friends, and not browsing the internet.
The sixth stage is the STATE STAGE. At this stage, you get down to work and get stressed from the looming deadline. You write as fast as possible to get the work done which may eventually reduce the work’s quality.
The last stage is known as the FINISH STAGE. Here, you are finally done with the assignment and relaxed, then you go back to browsing on the internet because the work is finished. You are likely to say: “Finally, I’m done.”
Although procrastination is dangerous, it has remained one of the most common habits among students around the country.
We can’t erase the fact that almost everyone at one point is guilty of it, even the most organised person. In order not to compile so much work for ourselves, we should learn to do the right things at the right time. But this question is: How do students continue to survive it every semester?
. Uti is a 200 level Journalism student of the Delta State University, Abraka and can be
07038494266.
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