It is now a quarter to midnight. I'm sitting at my desk perusing sports statistics and munching on cookies. I have a pile of work due tomorrow, in front of me, that I have yet to start. As this horrifying realization starts to dawn on me, I find myself wondering, "Where did the hours go? How did I manage to be so utterly unproductive?" I have probably done anything and everything possible except start my work: web surfing, TV and even laundry. Many of you can probably relate; among college students, procrastination is not so much a problematic tendency as it is an epidemic. It steals precious hours away from our day and prevents us from being productive. But if procrastination is really such a drawback, why do we continue to do it?
There have been many theories advanced as to why we continue to waste the hours away: fear of failure, perfectionism, boredom and just plain laziness. But I think the real reason why college students -- Dartmouth students in particular -- continue to procrastinate is the fact that we are simply so darn good at it.
That is the real reason why we haven't kicked the habit -- because miserable and destructive though it may be, many of us have perfected the art of procrastinating. That is to say, we have grown adept at procrastinating for as long as we want and getting away with it.
We can wait until the night before (or the morning of) the day that a paper is due before we so much as open up Microsoft Word, and still pull off a decent piece of work! It has gotten to the point of becoming a badge of honor of sorts -- the more you waste time and the later you start an assignment, the more bragging rights are conferred upon you. Consider how many times complaints about lack of sleep and minimal time spent on work have turned into boasting contests.
"Man, I had a 10-page paper due today that I didn't even start until, like, 11 p.m. last night. I had to down two Red Bulls just to stay up and finish it."
"Oh yeah, well I had a paper due at noon that I didn't start until 7 this morning. And I only had an iced tea." Ha!
But all kidding aside, Dartmouth students have become so good at procrastinating, it's frightening. It is oddly surreal to sometimes walk into the 1902 Room in the early hours of the morning, intending to finish a paper or assignment due in a few short hours, and find yourself bumping into five or six of your classmates working on the same assignment.
Perhaps it is a testament to Dartmouth students' own brilliance that we can wait until the 11th hour before starting an assignment and still manage to finish on time and get decent grades for that work. We may even be proud of the fact that we can summon the creative and intellectual focus necessary for a decent paper in such a short amount of time. (If further proof is needed, refer to the Facebook group that has been created for people who "can't write decent papers before 4 a.m.")
Maybe some of us procrastinators just work well under pressure. But whether we care to admit it or not, procrastination will eventually catch up with us. Sure, it seems like a godsend now. After all, the lure of procrastinating lies in the fact that you are theoretically spending as little time as possible actually doing work.
But it has already begun to take its toll on me.
If procrastination works for you, then by all means continue. But. if it permits us to do merely decent work, then we must stop viewing our procrastinating skills, honed though they may be, as a source of pride and a subject of breakfast table conversations and start looking at it as the destructive habit that it is.
There are many things we can excel at. But wasting our time does not have to be one of them.
