I’ve had my fair share of rounds of tests, papers, and projects that have accumulated throughout the semester. A lot of times all of this stress seems to erupt in one crazy week of rushing around trying to multitask a million things, studying as much as possible within a short amount of time and relying on Starbucks to get me through the many sleepless nights. This seems to be a part of the college experience as all of my friends and I struggle with a time management problem called procrastination that seems to result in long to-do lists with no time to do them in.
I think the problem is procrastination, which lurks on the internet in a various of ways, such as: twitter, myspace, facebook, youtube, itunes, hulu.com, blogs, email, instant messenger, addicting games and the list continues. See if any of the following applies to you:
- Watching full movies on youtube even if you have to wait 5 minutes between every part so that it loads. That’s the best time to take a bathroom break and get a new cup of joe, right?- Memorizing all of the lyrics to “Hakuna Matata” in Spanish, Portuguese and having the desire to learn the German version next. You never know when you’re on a gameshow and will need to bust this song out in Portuguese.- Discovering a new TV show (Mary Tyler More, Quarterlife, Joey) and watching every episode made of that show. We act as if they are only on that website today and will be deleted the moment our paper is submitted.- Editing old pictures and posting them on your facebook complete with tags and captions. There’s no better time to post those pictures of your friends playing in the February snow when it is 85 degrees outside and you’ve got a book to read before you can write a paper over it.- Deciding to start a tweeting experiment on twitter where you write a musical with some friends. It definitely won’t be annoying and will probably be so well written that it will be the next show on Broadway.These things are all ridiculous in light that our studies aren’t yet done. We are running out of time before the test. Would we really rather have a B or a C on the test just because we chose to learn the lyrics to the German version of “Hakuna Matata” instead? As college students, we are trapped in this seemingly neverending cycle of needing to procrastinate in order to get anything done. What would happen if we didn’t log on to facebook before sitting down to do research for our papers? What would happen if we didn’t think that for every 5 minutes of studying, we need to watch 5 videos off of youtube? What would happen if we discovered playing online tetris really won’t help our project to finish itself?
You know what would happen? We’d probably have better grades, be less stressed and have more free time when it really matters. Here’s some ideas to overcome procrastination and help you finish that paper not only before it is due but before you start a marathon of FRIENDS episodes you just found on the internet:
Open your computer with just the word document for your paper and any necessary materials. Facebook is never a necessary material unless you are writing a paper about social media. If so, good luck and schedule a longer amount of time to work on it.
- Print out all the necessary documents needed before your study session begins. This way, you won’t accidentally slip a twitter.com into your browser search while looking for that last document that’s on your test. I know you’re sure Ashton Kutcher uploaded in a tweet, but he really didn’t.
- Don’t bring your computer. If you bring it and don’t need it, don’t turn it on. You’d be surprised that upon signing out of social networks and shutting down, computers do not in fact explode due to a lack of use.
- Get online only during study breaks for a brief timed period. Once your time is up, do not hit the mental snooze button no matter how much you believe the alarm will alert you when 5 minutes have passed. In three hours after various time wasting activities have taken place, you will realize differently.It’s time to go study! Now, put down the headphones. We both know you aren’t going to listen to classical music while you type and instead plan on “just hearing the latest episode of The Office play in the background”, which really means that you’ll end up watching it and two more. This won’t end well unless you put procrastination off instead of putting off all of your school work.
