How Students Can Stop Procrastination and Become Motivated to Study

Procrastination is the tendency to needlessly put off valuable activities such as studying.

If you think you are struggling from procrastination, the first thing you need to do is to know what kind of procrastinator you are. Before you start taking the necessary steps to stop your procrastination, you need to have a good understanding of why you procrastinate in order to start taking the correct steps to eliminate or avoid it.

Type 1: The student who think they have too much work

Throughout human evolution, we have learned to sabe valuable mental resources whenever possible. Our evolutionary history has taught us to keep our mental resources in check whenever we face difficult tasks that are not “essential” to our survival such as eating and sleeping. Humans are naturally very good at conserving mental resources and taking mental shortcuts. Because of this, we are known as cognitive misers.

We sometimes put off doing our assignments or studying for exams until the last minute because we know they require hard work that demands a lot of mental energy. Since these tasks have no direct impact on our survival or well-being they often get pushed to a later date.

Ask yourself: do you put off working on assignments or studying for exams because you feel overwhelmed just thinking about it?

Type 2: The student who think they have “enough” time

As human beings, we are unable accurate assess whether we can accomplish within a set period of time. We have the tendency to overestimate what can be accomplished within a given period of time.

Our inability to plan correctly is also known as Planning fallacy. Planning fallacy happens even when the we have a strong idea how to do the task.

We often forget that we need to use time to rest, sleep, eat and spend time other people. We often forget that we sometimes get interrupted or distracted when we start to work on tasks.

Even professional project managers add time buffers to make sure they have enough time complete key tasks that is necessary.

Type 3: The student who think “I do better under pressure”

This excuse is often used when we want to convince ourselves that putting off high priority tasks such as studying for an exam, is acceptable. This generally happens because when we say this to ourselves, we do not feel guilty about keeping our studies for the last minute.

In addition, in order to convince ourselves that it is okay, we recollect past situations where we did extremely well when tasks were done at the last minute. This psychological phenomenon, which is well documented in psychological journals, is known as Cognitive Dissonance. 

So my advice is, although some of you may feel that you produce the best work under pressure, imagine how much better it could be if you gave yourself more time to study and work on your assignments. 

If you are in university, you are paying for an education which will benefit you in the long run, why not give yourself the time you need to do your best. 

Type 4: The student who self-handicaps

We sometimes protect our self-concept by handicapping our own abilities. When students can delay studying to the last minute, they can make excuse for why our grades can be low.

For example, a student may delay studying for an exam until the last two days. Because this student had only has couple of days to study for the exam, he accepts that fact he is “allowed” to get a lower grade on his exam because of lack of time.

When he gets a low grade, he can justify to himself that he got a low grade because “I had only one day to study for the exam”. His knowledge and competence will be never questioned.

On the other hand, if the student were to higher than expected grade, the student would consider this to be an extraordinary accomplishment. Therefore, it is a win-win for our ego, and our self-esteem is never threatened.

Without realizing it, we may be using procrastination to fill a need; the need to protect our self-concept. If you think you are one of the students who handicap themselves, understand that your grades are more valuable to you in order to accomplish your future goals, and in turn can help increase your self-esteem as you realize your full potential.

Remind yourself that you are in control of how well you do in school. Only you can help yourself to get better grades by giving yourself the time you need to study and complete your assignments. Don’t let your ego or self-esteem get in the way of getting grades you want in university.

Type 5: The student who prefer study “tomorrow”

Some of us often put tasks off for later dates because putting things off to another day has been shown to create positive emotions that reward procrastination.

There are two positive emotions that make us feel good when we procrastinate.

• ·The first reason is because when we have to organize and complete tasks/assignments before deadlines this can create a great amount of stress. However, if we just put off these tasks to a later date, we get a bit of relief. This sense of relief is rewarding the action of putting things off to the future. Since we got rewarded for putting things off, we are more likely to continue this behaviour in the future.

• ·The second reason this behaviour gets rewarded is because we imagine ourselves engaged in some future action that has a positive outcome, and this makes us happy. For example, when we plan to work on our assignment tomorrow, we feel good about ourselves for organising our schedules and making such proactive plans for the future.

The problem is that we often incorrectly forecast our future behaviour. We actually don’t follow through with the plans we created because we run through the whole set of negative feelings as we did before – feelings of overwhelm. As Timothy Pychyl explains, “there is nothing like a righteous intention now for an action later to make us feel good.”

Now that you got idea how you procrastinate, let’s take look few how you can stop procrastination.

How to eliminate procrastination and become super focused with your studying.

1)     Determine Why You Are Studying

Before you start studying, you must explain to yourself why you are engaging in the act of studying. You probably have noticed that your brain is reluctant to engage in activities if there is no reward for doing those activities.

Therefore, it is important for you to understand that you may be procrastinating because you cannot explicitly see the rewards associated with studying.

Even if you are not struggling with procrastination, you should do this exercise to get you motivated to study.

To get you started with building your list of reasons why you should study, here are some reasons that I used to motivate myself to study and get higher grades:

• Better job prospects – Yes, I know many people will argue with me on this. However, all I can say is I was able to join a leading tech and, also, investment management company after graduating even though I majored in Psychology – now I make over 100k a year doing consulting after graduating 3.5 years ago. People will tell you the grades don't have an influence in your career. I am going to say it has a big effect on your career. The way it has a big effect is because when you start to set goals to get lofty goals you train your brain to dream big and still go after those goals. This is more important than anything else!

• Be able to attend prestigious graduate schools.

• Develop valuable skills in writing, communication, analysis, creativity and public speaking.

•  Learn to set challenging goals and accomplish them.

• Being a knowledgeable individual.

• Making the most out of the tens of thousands of dollars I am paying to educate myself.

• Respect from friends and peers.

One of the key aspects to do well in university is having an explicit understanding of why you should be studying.

Try it out: Write a short list of reasons why you think it is important for you to do well in university. Use my guide to getting started. Once you create the list, post it on your wall so that you can see the end result of your efforts every day.

2) Clean Up Your Study Environment

If you have a messy room, or a messy desk, clean that stuff up right away because having a messy environment can perpetuate your procrastination.

This is because having too many things lying around can negatively impact your ability to focus and process information.

Researchers from Princeton University found that when your space is messy it often competes for your attention, resulting in increased stress and diminished performance.

Try it out: Take 10 minutes and clear your surroundings very quickly before you start studying. Only 10 minutes to do this task. Do not go on a rampage and clean your whole house. Feel free to clean during study breaks for about 10 minutes.

3) Let go about being a perfectionist

Being a recovering perfectionist myself, I realised that it often holds me back from delivering results. I am not saying you shouldn’t produce high-quality work. What I am saying is that trying to produce perfect work all the time can cause you to be stressed out and waste time. This stress can interfere with your performance and the enjoyment you receive from studying, hence, leading you to put studying off until some future date.

Try it out: Rather than trying to get a perfect grade on an assignment, focus on stretching yourself to create your best work. Understand it is completely OK to make some mistakes. Allowing yourself to make a few mistakes reduces stress and will for you an opportunity for you to be more creative.

 4) Create A 3 “Must Do”s Each Day

This would be one of the most important tactics I used to get higher grades in the university. I always set three tasks for the next day before I go to sleep. Remember to include the fun stuff too. This is very important. The key here is to develop the habit of creating the list and following through with it, every day. For example, I used to set tasks similar to these:

1) Power review Week 7 lectures for Bio for 2 rounds

2) Go to the mall with friends and buy 2 shirts

3) Prepare for a Stats quiz by doing 20 problems

Try it out: Before going to sleep, write down three tasks you MUST do for tomorrow. Make sure that each task is objective and quantifiable. Try not to use time as a measure for your tasks because you can use up time without getting things done. Make sure that you complete these at all costs! Setting deadlines is key!

5) Use Procrastination Signals To Help You Start On Your Tasks

One tactic that I used to beat procrastination was using procrastination signals to get started on my work. What are these procrastination signals? you may be asking. They are any thoughts that emerge in your head that you tell yourself to put off until some future date. Here are some examples:

·        “I’ll feel more like doing this tomorrow”

·        “I work better under pressure”

·        “I have lots of time to do this…”

·        “I can do this in a few hours tonight”’

·        “I have so much work to do, and I have no idea where to start”

·        “I will just do it tomorrow”

·        “I will start on it after watching Game Of Thrones”

Those are some thoughts we come up with to convince ourselves to procrastinate.

Try it out: If you have any thoughts similar to those mentioned above, understand that you are heading down a road you don’t want to be in. Use those signals for you to get started on studying. Preferably, something easy that you can complete in 5 minutes. Use the next suggestion to help you get started.

 6) 5 Minute Power Start

This technique can be very powerful if used in combination with procrastination signals. The idea behind this technique is to practise on “getting started” on your study tasks. When you have a habit of getting started right away, you will notice that you often build momentum. You will notice that you continue to work on the tasks for much longer than previously anticipated, resulting in accomplishing goals that you never thought possible.

Therefore, use all your focus and willpower to just get started on a single task regardless of how much time you have, or how much work you still have to do.

I was able to get rid of many procrastinating habits through this technique. For example, every time I would think of starting to study “tomorrow”, I would immediately start to work on a very easy study task. I usually focus on studying for about 5 minutes. It could be as easy as opening the assignment outline and seeing what topics I needed to cover for the assignment. Here are easy 5-minute tasks you can use as a guideline:

·        Studying for an exam: Opening up the lecture slides and looking through the first 5 slides.

·        Working on the Assignment: Google the topic and find 2 links that are relevant to your assignment and put the information in a word document.

·        Quantitative problems: Search YouTube for the topic and watch a 4-minute video.

Think about an easy task that you can get started right away.

Try it out: The key is to just get started. Start with a simple task that wouldn’t require much time to complete. We often get overwhelmed because we imagine the amount of work we need to get done. Focusing on a very easy task for 5 minutes can help you build momentum.

7) Make Strong Decisions And Commit To Stick to Them

We are reluctant to make decisions that benefit our future because we have too many decisions to make. We often run into this problem because of information overload. When we have too much information, it is rather challenging for us to sort through the information and decide on what actions to take.

Having too many decisions can cause a tremendous amount of stress. When this happens, we usually default to choices that bring the most amount of pleasure in the short term. Since studying behaviours do not bring conceivable short-term rewards or pleasures, we feel reluctant when it comes to making decisions that support our studying styles. We often put off studying as we would rather engage in other activities such as watching movies, shopping, and going on Facebook.

 Try it out: Focus on making strong decisions. For example, if you have an assignment due in a week, finish your assignment within the next 5 days no matter what. Leave the last two days to edit it. If your friends ask you to go to the movies with them, tell them you would be able to come after the 5th day. You need to practise and develop the skill of making decisions and following through with them. This is very important.

8) Understand That Your Moods Often Lie

One of the primary reasons why we procrastinate is because we just “don’t feel like doing it”. We often rely on our feelings to give us information on whether we engage in a certain behaviour or not. In other words, we rely on our emotions to guide our behaviour.

This is one of those evolutionary traits that has proven to be extremely useful when we’re surrounded by dangers that could harm us. We had to consistently rely on our emotions and feelings to guide our behaviour to avoid the dangers presented by predators and the environment.

The same traits do not, however, translate well to modern times. This is because, in this day and age, our biggest accomplishments heavily rely on our ability to delay gratification for a very long time. Hence[DK1] , withstanding negative emotions and feelings to see ours through goals.

Understand that if you are utilising emotions to guide your day-to-day behaviours, they may not bring the best results in the future. I am not saying you should ignore all feelings and emotions. What I am saying is that you should use feelings as signals. Understand that some signals are not always accurate or useful. Use goals and objectives to guide your behaviour.

Try it out: Understand that your emotions are temporary. Even if you don’t feel like starting on your assignment, just start and do something for 5 minutes. You will notice that you probably do not feel the same way after you start. Remember, your emotions are temporary, but your grades affect you in the long run.

You will notice that each day has three tasks you are set to complete. Before you start to work on these tasks, make sure you identify them clearly.

Make sure they are:

• Action-Oriented (read from textbook)·        

• Measurable (I.e. I read 15 pages from my textbook)

•  Time-Constrained (30 minutes)

“I will read 15 pages from my biology textbook in 60 minutes.”

They should be measurable in the sense that they should have clear starting and ending points. For example, you can say that you are going to find 10 journal articles for a Psychology Research Paper. In this situation, both the Action and the Measurability is covered. The action is actually “finding” or locating the journal articles.

The next component is time. I highly recommend that you set to complete each task within 50 minutes. This works like a charm. To this day, I used the 50-minute method to complete my tasks. Make sure that you go full out with a lot of intensity during this 50 minute period…

Do NOT let yourself get distracted during this period. If you are on your computer. You can use Google Timer to go off after 50 minutes. Make sure that you take a nice little break after this 50 minute period. This is really important. I recommend that you go on a 20-minute break.

That’s it for today!

Much love!