I Must Confess, I am a Procrastinator.

(I procrastinated writing this post by searching for the right picture)

Anita Woolfolk's tenth podcast is about procrastination. I have to admit that I have been a terrible procrastinator as long as I have been in charge of my own learning. Once high school rolled around and I started receiving more long-term projects instead of daily homework, I began putting off the work until the last minute.

According to the podcast, I am not alone. In fact, 80 to 90 percent of college students engage in procrastinating, and 75 percent of them are aware they are procrastinating. Some students may spend up to one third of their day procrastinating. Some things we do daily, like texting or going online, become the easiest ways to procrastinate, and the hardest habits to break.

Woolfolk talked about why these students procrastinate. Some claim they work better under pressure, and then proceed to save an important paper until the night before it is due. However, this work tends to be of a lower quality, included more errors, and is less original than what a student would have written if they started earlier. If a student has low self-efficacy, they may delay starting a project because they feel like they won't do good on it anyway. They use the excuse, "I'm going to fail anyway, so why waste my time?" Students may be victims of self-handicapping; they are unable to manage the emotions that come with failing an important assignment. These students use the excuse, "Well I didn't have enough time to do well," even though the assignment had been given out three months before. Depression can be another cause of procrastination that unfortunately gets the student stuck in a vicious circle. They are depressed so they don't start their project; they do poor on the project so they feel more depressed. Also, rebellion can come into play, especially in adolescents. These are the students that don't want to follow anyone else's rules or listen to a deadline. Finally, some procrastinators may simply be perfectionists. Their inability to start or complete a project comes from their desire for it to be perfect. They may decide it is never going to be as good as they want it to be, so why bother?

So what can I do as a teacher to help my students break their procrastinating ways? First, Woolfolk suggest raising students' self-efficacy. She offered the following ideas:

• Mastery - point out other projects students have completed well
• Modeling - show examples of past students' work so current students see it can be done
• Social Persuasion - use basic encouragement (e.g. "You can do this!")
• Anxiety - allow students to turn in an ungraded outline so you can give feedback

She also suggests behaviors to encourage among your students. I can tell my students to work on one piece at a time instead of looking at the big picture. Taking small bites out of a project tends to make you feel more accomplished and helps encourage you to keep working. She suggests working for ten minutes and then taking a small break. Another idea is creating a study group and set firm meeting times. This way, students will feel obligated to attend because they made a commitment to a friend.

In this class, I have personally used the last two options for self-management. When I looked at everything that needed to be accomplished in only five weeks, I would go into full on panic mode, shut down, and not be able to work at all. Instead, I decided to focus on one task at a time and get it done. Especially when it came to tying up loose ends at the end of the week. I scheduled what I would work on each day and made sure I completed those tasks. We also formed a study group and met every Tuesday on campus (sometimes more). Knowing that my peers were counting on me showing up, and the promise of coffee, made me show up and get work done.

I like to think as I get older, I get better at managing my procrastinating, and I hope that I will be able to help my students avoid becoming like me. I guess this is one case where only time will tell.