5. Procrastination

        I went to bed at 3am last night because there's a paper due this morning. I didn't finish it earlier although I spent the whole weekend working on it. Slept too late makes me feel extramely sleepy in the day time, and couldn't concentrate at all. Then I keep asking myself why it always happen to? Maybe I should really think about it. I've read an article online was talking about people who always delay the things have to be done which called procrastination. So am I one of them? 

       In order to explore more details about procrastination I start looking for resources on the Internet. While searching online there came out an self-testing website for people to know weather he/she has procrastination or just being lazy. It wasn't a professional psychology test website, at least it's worth to be consult. if you wanna try for fun, here's the link of the test page http://astro.sina.com.cn/t/2009-11-19/115265767.shtml (Sorry, Chinese version only)

So, what is procrastination? 

        Procrastination refers to the counterproductive deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. Psychologists often cite such behavioras a mechanism coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision. [Fiore, Neil A (2006). The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt- Free Play. New York: Penguin Group. ISBN 9781585425525.  p. 5] Schraw, Wadkins, and Olafson have proposed three criteria for a behavior to be classified as procrastination: it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying. [Schraw, G., Wadkins, T., & Olafson, L. (2007). Doing the things we do: A grounded theory of academic procrastination [Electronic version]. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 99(1), 12-25.]

Procrastination may result in stress, a sense of guiltand crisis, severe loss of personal productivity, as well as social disapproval for not meeting responsibilities or commitments. These feelings combined may promote further procrastination. While it is regarded as normal for people to procrastinate to some degree, it becomes a problem when it impedes normal functioning. Chronic procrastination may be a sign of an underlying psychological disorder.

The cause of procrastination: 

        There are two main types of procrastination: the relaxed type and he tense-afraid type. Person who is a relaxed type really enjoy relaxing activities rather than task, he/she couldn't renounce the pleasure instead of facing the reality, doing things he/she unwilling to do. On the other, who is a tense-afraid type is habitually shirk responsibilities, because he/she's afraid being under pressure. He/she might usually have a plan which wasn't feasible. In particular, when the deadlines coming soon he/she feels over anxious.

Lastly, I summarized some tips of how to deal with procrastination, also for self-suggestion:

       1．To realize that there's no point of being procrastination, it couldn't help you to get your work done. Meanwhile, it's waste of time.

　　2． Write down all the reason of being procrastination.

　　3． Think about those reason carefully, and try to come over it.

　　4． Make a to do list then get started!