Am I a procrastinator or not?

You wanted to study all afternoon. But when you finally sit down at your desk with your laptop open, you don’t actually do anything. You get up again, grab a drink, check your email, or Google something. After an hour of messing around, you close your laptop and decide you just don’t have any inspiration today so you do something else instead. Many students describe that a study afternoon can go like this. It’s easy to conclude that you simply lack discipline or that you’re a procrastinator. But is that true? And if so, how can you change it?

Wat is uitstelgedrag?

We talk about procrastination when you do have a goal, but you don’t take action to achieve it. For example, you want to pass that exam or write that paper and submit it on time, but you put off the study activities you need to do or you don’t do them at all. As a result, you either don’t achieve your goal, or you achieve it less well than you could have. For instance, you might just scrape a 5.5, while you could have gotten a higher grade if you’d started earlier. And deep down, you’d like that sometimes, too. We call it procrastination when it bothers you that it happens this way and makes you want to change it.

Identify the cause

Whether you’re a “procrastinator” as in a hard-to-change personality trait may not even be the most important thing to know. What is clear is that a study afternoon like that apparently wasn’t productive. So how do you deal with it? It can help to explore whether you can answer the following four questions:

Do I know what I need to do?

The first question helps you define your goal. Do you need to prepare for an exam, for example, or submit a paper? Is it clear to you what the exam will be about and what kinds of questions you can expect? And do you know how long your paper should be, what topic it should cover, and what it will be assessed on?

Do I know how to approach this?

Knowing what you need to do is important, so you can determine how to achieve your goal. Define your approach by listing the tasks or activities you need to complete. For example: do you know how to study efficiently for an exam, or which steps to follow when writing an academic text?

Can I do this?

The third question (“Can I do this?”) is more personal than the what- and how-questions. It relates to your knowledge and skills, but also to your personal situation. Do you have time for this right now? And are you mentally and physically fit enough to carry out the tasks? If not, it may be better to focus on something else first—solving a problem, or getting some rest. Studying requires a clear mind.

Do I want to do this?

Finally, the fourth question is about motivation. Do you want to work on these study tasks right now? For example, do you find it interesting or enjoyable to choose a topic for your paper? Maybe not—but do you find it important enough to do anyway? Or does it mainly feel like an obligation?

A procrastinator? Maybe not after all!

Auteur

• 

  mr. Angela Markenhof

  Educational Consultant/Trainer

  Email: a.t.markenhof@uu.nl

  Phone: 06 38 295 105