Procrastination, We've all Been There.

Have you ever procrastinated on a school (high school, college or university) related work? Have you ever avoided doing that term paper like it was the black plague or always find something more interesting to do than researching for your thesis? Do you always look at that paper from your English for business class and decide to do something else first? We call procrastination to the avoidance of doing something (any particular task) that you feel needs to be accomplished. But it is much more than just playing truant for a while with your obligations; procrastination can lead to guilty feelings, inadequacy, self-doubt or self-defeating thoughts and even depression. All of these painful consequences are very hard to bear and will also interfere with your academic and personal success.

"But I Work Better Under Pressure"

Studies conducted in several universities within the United States and the most prestigious English school Oxford is proud to have, showed that the worst procrastinators received (on average) significantly lower grades on courses that had many deadlines compared with low or moderate procrastinators. Also found was that the worst procrastinators routinely used a particular type of rationalizations to justify their behaviour (which would be judged as bad if not because of these exceptions.) Some of these rationalizations are of the I work better under pressure or I'm sure I can finish this by the last minute type. Results, however, show that these thoughts are nothing more than wishful thinking, a comfortable Kaloo or teddy bear that they can hug to feel better about themselves. Low procrastinators, on the other hand, were much less likely to use these type of rationalizations and usually were much more realistic with the possibility of meeting their deadlines according to the work they had already done and how hard the work left to do was.

The results show that procrastinators don't work better under pressure, but it may be the only way they work, they don't have any idea how well they might do if they didn't procrastinate.
Bruce Tuckman, professor of education at Ohio State University.

Those who routinely procrastinate were found to have very low levels of what researchers called self-regulation. This self-regulation was defined as the ability to control their own actions to meet a goal or to act in accordance to their own goals. This suggest that self discipline, the ability to decide and act upon a decision in order to meet a goal was hard to muster and master for these procrastinators.