Procrastination

Why:

Since so many of us struggle with procrastination, it’s worth exploring why it happens and how to change our patterns.

Warm-Up:

Can you think of a time recently when you procrastinated? Tell the story.

Exploration:

Watch the TED Talk Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator (link here). Pause at a few key moments to discuss and apply the speaker’s ideas to our own lives. What does your “Instant Gratification Monkey” tend to do? What finally causes the “Panic Monster” to appear, and how do you deal with it? What advice do you have to change this pattern? See ideas in the link, like how we use schedules, find accountability buddies, and more..

Additional Resources:

After students have had a chance to discuss their own experiences with procrastination — hopefully realizing they are far from alone in grappling with this! — there may be an opportunity to discuss what we do about it. Simply asking students for their ideas, and helping to note patterns or categories of responses, can be enough here. But if it helps to note a few common ways to help with procrastination, you may want to suggest, or look out for among student ideas, the following:

  1. Accountability Buddies: Often having a friend (or a group) who knows that you’re trying to work on a goal, and will check-in with you, can help you respond better when the temptation to procrastinate is great. Remember that adolescents are highly socially motivated — this approach taps into their core social drive. Some students enjoy having a video call going with a friend while they’re doing homework; while this can be a source of distraction, if they choose a friend based on someone who likes getting their work done before playing, then it may help them start that habit too.

  2. Breaking projects into smaller steps: For many students (and adults!), the mental load of having to take a large, complicated project and figure out where to start is enough to make us pause and procrastinate right away. If instead (and perhaps with some help from a buddy) we can break the project into a series of small tasks, then when we are ready to begin, the threshold to get started is much lower, and we’re thus less likely to procrastinate.

  3. Timeboxing: This is a method for those who like using a visual calendar (online or paper). Rather than having a to-do list, which can quickly become overwhelming, you can “time box” your key tasks for a project by reserving time in your calendar, for example a half-hour at a specific time on a specific day to complete the first task needed, then reserve a specific time the next day for the next step, and so on.

  4. Reward yourself: Many students report creating some system of rewards, for example, allowing themselves 20 minutes to game or talk with a friend after 40 minutes of homework, or requiring themselves to finish before they have dessert, etc. This can be problematic if imposed from the outside, but if a student creates this system themselves, it can be a playful and effective way of gaming our own motivation.