Procrastination, its effect on people, and how its effects me

Introduction

Procrastination refers to wasting time before a deadline. The tendency to procrastinate involves putting off work that must be completed to attain a certain goal, such as watching television instead of working on a term paper. Procrastination has a negative impact on the quality of one's work and is linked to a variety of negative physical and psychological outcomes. Today's world is larger and more quickly paced than it has ever been before. With that, it can also be observed that today people are faced with many means of distraction from the many forms of responsibilities that are faced in everyday life. Taking something important to do and putting it off later and later is known as procrastination, and according to a study made by Live Science, 15-20% of all people are common procrastinators, and that included in this 15-20% are 90% of all collage students (Senecal, 889).

There are numerous theories and studies that have been performed on procrastination over the past decade, and most of them show different results as to what causes us to procrastinate and as to exactly why we do it. There are a few areas and points, however that these studies seem to agree on in relation to the results of procrastination. Procrastinators sabotage themselves. They put obstacles in their own path. They actually choose paths that hurt their performance.

How it effect me?

I suffer from a disability that is entirely in my mind. While I have suffered from this disability my whole life, I first became aware of it when I was in the fifth grade and was assigned my first “essay” paper. Although I had two full weeks to work on the paper before it was due, my brain simply refused to even ponder on the paper until two days before it was due.

At first I was frightened, and even more frustrated, but I soon found out that I was not alone. My disability is commonly known as procrastination. Procrastination is a self-inflicted disability in which one does not lack the skills or talent to complete tasks, but lacks the motivation to complete tasks before a required date.

Those who do not personally suffer from this disability often associate the term with words such as lazy or worthless, or they say that they, procrastinators, just merely do not care. Oh how these critics are awfully wrong. As someone who suffers from procrastination, I find it very insulting when someone assigns a word such as lazy to me not knowing I have a disability. Just because my disability is not visibly evident, does not mean it does not exist. Although scientists and doctors may disagree, I am convinced that somewhere in my genetic makeup there is a glitch in the “get it done” department. This glitch is completely and entirely in my mind. My brain loves to work under pressure, thus almost everything I do is done last minute. My brain basically refuses to let me complete ...