Are you putting off starting your draft? I hope not because --
Welcome to Week 4: Getting to the Draft!
Eighty-six percent of you agreed in class today that procrastination is deadly to a research project. Man, I must be doing something right this semester.
Joking aside, let's be honest: procrastination can be a dirty word in the academic world. While some may proudly procrastinate, the rest of us associate words like "guilty, lazy, inadequate, anxious, or stupid" to ourselves when we delay important tasks ("
Overcoming Procrastination"). No one likes to feel any of those ways! So why, then, do we insist on procrastinating even when we know it's detrimental to our well-being, learning, and quality of work?
Professionals at Princeton University contribute an interesting psychological perspective to this conversation:
Procrastination...can be traced to underlying and more complex psychological reasons. These dynamics are often made worse by schools where students are constantly being evaluated, and especially in college where the pressure for grades is high and a lot can be riding on students’ performance. In reality, procrastination is often a self-protection strategy for students. For example, if you procrastinate, then you always have the excuse of “not having enough” time in the event that you fail, so your sense of your ability is never threatened ("Understanding and Overcoming Procrastination").
Understanding your habits, even from a psychological standpoint, is a good step towards implementing a new approach to successfully finishing your projects. If you need some practical advice for forging ahead (aka not procrastinating) with writing this week, Lifehack.org outlines a couple dozen strategies just for you. Check them out
here.
And, as usual, happy writing!
