Finals: Waiting Until the Last Minute

Sitting on the computer, idly jumping around from email folders, to chat windows, to website inboxes, I check the clock. It’s only six I tell myself, and I continue to goof off when I have other objectives in the back of my mind.

Procrastination has always been one of my weaknesses, and it follows me through every school year, no matter how much I promise myself I will discard it. It’s astonishing how I always make myself miserable with loads of homework the night before it’s due, yet I never change this habit.

I usually distract myself with simple activities, or I just simply don’t do my work because I don’t feel like it. Why I would rather lounge around on the couch and watch reruns instead of getting my homework done is a question I cannot answer.

I guess there is a lazy side of me that has lead me to wait until ten the night before a project is due to finally start working on it. It gives me good motivation when I know I only have an hour left, I suppose.

So this weeks topic of procrastination? Studying for finals.

The final week of the first semester is already here, and I find myself rushing around to get assignments finished, and eventually, to find spare time for studying. All of this is at the last minute, of course.

So, as I was watching TV and sitting at my computer, I forgot to include my school work into my multitasking. My mind was telling me “you should be studying” until I finally ignored the nagging concern and allowed the noise of the TV to drown out any interest I had left in possibly getting my work done before I needed to go to bed.

It never works though, and as any student with the same habit will understand, it isn’t an easily curable trait to fix either.

I believed I could eliminate this constant waiting-until-the-last-minute illness by making a pact with my friend at the beginning of the year. We agreed that both of us would do our work before anything else.

She succeeded. She was working on her homework last night, while I was bothering her by sending her constant instant messages, complaining about how I didn’t want to do my homework, or study. I spend more time complaining about doing the work, than actually getting it done. In this aspect, I fail.

By Samantha St.Clair