By Jennifer Montalvo
It’s midnight on a Tuesday and the InfoCommons computer lab in Snell Library is packed with 160 students rapidly typing to beat the clock. Amongst the background noise of papers shuffling and the low murmur of iPod tunes, phrases such as “It’s due tomorrow!” bounce off the walls and almost every seat seems to be filled by the token procrastinator.
Here, one may encounter the usual characters: The jittery girl who rewards herself with a sip of Starbucks coffee after typing another paragraph, the guy intently staring at his blank Word document with his head in his hands and, almost always, a couple of bloodshot-eyed all-nighters who pride themselves on always finishing their papers the morning they’re due.
“It usually quiets down around 3 a.m., but until then every seat is filled,” said Brian Selba, an InfoCommons card swiper and freshman computer science major.
The token procrastinator
Web sites suggest procrastination is no longer just for the slackers, but rather trendy. The Facebook has groups devoted to the caffeine addicted, sleep deprived and adrenaline rush fanatics. The campus-based group NU Procrastinators has more than 100 members and a council that includes a procrastinator in chief, InfoCommons VP and an international deadline negotiator.
Facebook procrastination groups exist at some of the most prestigious universities, with no distinction between Ivy League and standard colleges. One of the largest groups on the site is Princeton Students for Procrastination, with more than 300 members. Other groups include Procrastinators United at Yale, Procrastinators Club at Cornell, Professional Procrastinators at George Washington University and more at Penn State, Duke, San Diego State, Ohio State and Boston College.
Most procrastinators have a story. Zack Shapiro, a sophomore criminal justice major, recalled his best procrastination tale: “In high school I was taking an independent study course and we had a huge paper due at the end of the year, but I put it off as long as I could. When the day finally came that it was due, I still hadn’t done it. I actually wound up doing it over the summer and submitted it in September. I told my teacher that it got lost in e-mail. He gave me an ‘A.'”
It’s not uncommon for most procrastinators to say they’re doing well in most of their classes and therefore see no reason to change their ways; although most don’t deny they inevitably make their lives more difficult by procrastinating – like Nick Jesenof, a sophomore communications major.
“When I stay up late finishing homework, I don’t pay attention in my earlier classes because I’m so tired,” Jesenof said. “It’s a vicious cycle because it makes it harder to study for tests and I end up pulling all-nighters.”
For the most part, procrastinators don’t mind acknowledging they have a problem; they’re well aware of it. It’s just not on the top of their list of “Things To Put Off Until Tomorrow.” But what happens to chronic procrastinators when they enter the work force full of deadlines, presentations and multitasking? When excuses are no longer acceptable and their job is on the line? The only way to fix this self-destructive problem is trace it back to its beginnings.
NU Excuses 101
Creating and justifying reasons for task avoidance consumes so much of a procrastinator’s life, it’s like another class. Every day, the professional procrastinator must demonstrate exceptional persuasive verbal and writing skills when speaking and writing e-mails to professors explaining their excuses. A high proficiency in math is also recommended, since every good procrastinator knows how to calculate how many days late they can submit a paper without failing a class. And a certain mastery of acting is essential while telling lies such as “my computer crashed” or “there was a death in the family.” Crying on cue won’t hurt either.
For most procrastinators, in the amount of time it takes for them to carry out their elaborate plans, they could have completed the task at hand.
Jane Burka and Lenora Yuen wrote the book on procrastination – a self-help guide, that is. In “Procrastination, Why You Do It, What To Do About It,” the former procrastinators explain the bad habit can be traced as far back as early childhood.
Burka and Yuen wrote in the book: “Trying to please that teacher or coach who never seemed satisfied, no matter how hard you tried, can be such a discouraging experience that you procrastinate instead of continuing to make an effort.”
We’ve all heard about the parents who weren’t pleased with any grade lower than an “A” or the boss who never acknowledged the extra time employees invested in their work. The presence of these kinds of authority figures during childhood and adolescent years can ultimately influence work ethics later in life.
“My mom is a teacher and my older sister was a straight ‘A’ student,” said Devon Trevelyan, a junior music industry major and self-described procrastinator. “It put a lot of pressure on me to live up to the standards that they set. My parents would give my sister anything she wanted because she made good grades. Instead of it being a means of encouragement, it only made me decide that my sister had a very boring schooling career.”
Often procrastinators feel if the work they produce is never going to be good enough anyway, there is no point in making it a priority. The decision is not born out of neglect, but out of fear of failing, said Nancy Friesen, a psychotherapist at the Center for Counseling and Student Development.
“I think students who procrastinate feel like there’s a lot of pressure to perform well,” she said.
In the mind of the procrastinator, it is better to put work off until the last minute and turn in something average than risk turning in their best work and being told to do it over.
This belief can develop in the early childhood years when children first learn what actions they can get away with and what warrants punishment, like in the case of Jesenof.
“My parents would threaten to take away privileges if I didn’t finish my homework, but they would never actually go through with it,” he said.
Once a child has learned he or she will not be penalized for failing to begin a task on time, the child will not hesitate to repeat that behavior in the future.
“Parents are the first teachers,” said Joyce Khoury, an elementary education advisor in the School of Education. “Therefore, parent modeling, the structure of the home environment and the relationship between the caregiver and the child is extremely significant in the early years of child development.”
Even if one wasn’t a procrastinator in elementary school or high school, many students find it extremely difficult to escape procrastination once they arrive at college. According to a study led by Joseph Ferrari, an associate professor of psychology at DePaul University in Chicago, “70 percent of college students report problems with overdue papers and delayed studying.”
And a living environment that breeds procrastination doesn’t help either.
Enter the realm of the freshman residence halls: a place where friends can visit each other any time, frequent napping throughout the day is considered normal and distractions are readily available for all excuse-making needs. The even greater temptation to procrastinate comes from the new sense of freedom one feels as a freshman. Parents are no longer breathing down their children’s necks to finish assignments and students are in complete control of their actions.
“My TV, stereo and computer are all at my fingertips,” said Lauren Haas, a freshman international business major. “You can constantly hear other people outside or in the halls. It’s never quiet, so it is difficult to block out noise and concentrate.”
Once one has become a college procrastinator, the behavior typically only gets worse.
“When I was a freshman, I thought if I missed class I’d be in trouble or miss something important,” Jesenof said. “But this year, I’ve definitely skipped more classes because I know how many classes I can miss and the repercussions of missing them.”
The perfect procrastinator
The majority of procrastinators are, in fact, perfectionists in disguise. The desire is there to write a well-written paper, but since the task can be nothing less than perfect, it becomes overwhelming and too difficult to even begin.
According to Joseph Ferrari’s book, “Procrastination and Task Avoidance, Theory, Research and Treatment,” perfectionists and procrastinators set high, unattainable goals for themselves, and take an all-or-nothing approach to achieve them.
“People procrastinate because they haven’t seen time as an opportunity, they see it as something that passes on a clock,” said Mark Lamendola, a traveling time management speaker and certified professional manager and
