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We would like to thank Lojain Al Ahmary for writing this article. Lojain is an eleventh grade High School student from Dhahran High School, Saudi Arabia. It s fantastic to be able to share a student s contribution on procrastination. It is high school students, after all, who understand better than anyone the reasons why so many of their peers procrastinate.

I have so much time left. Ill start it tomorrow. These were the thoughts going through Henrys mind when his history teacher notified his class that they would have an essay and a final exam in precisely a month. Well, it is two days before the submission date and exam, and Henry has not started anything. He is panicking, stressing, and cramming way too much information in his head on such a short amount of time. His fingers are vigorously typing, trying to meet the deadline. After submitting his essay on time and reviewing all of the information, Henry was able to accomplish both tasks that he had a month to do in two days. What happens after that?

Perhaps the most common definition of procrastination is the postponement of a task. Usually the individual undertakes a less vital task in favor of an important one or undertakes a gratifying task instead of an unpleasant one. This results in postponing the task to a later time. There are an innumerable amount of students such as Henry, who leave school work until the eleventh hour, yet they do not immediately realize what they are doing to themselves. Teachers, parents, and advisors warn them not to leave their tasks until the last minute for a reason.

There are numerous reasons for a students procrastination, but nowadays it is even more intense than it ever has been because of twenty first century technology. There are obvious benefits that come with this technology, but students can avoid writing papers, studying, doing homework or projects with a click of a mouse or screen. It is important that these students realize that they could be using their time more efficiently; similarly, the time they save could make them more optimistic when approaching their education.

The condition of a students work is not the same as it could be if he/she did not procrastinate, indicating insufficient learning of the task. For instance, this can be seen in the five year study of 777 marketing students at the Warwick Business School which was conducted by two researchers at the institute, David Arnott and Scott Dacko. They observed the final assignments from 504 first year students and 273 third year students, and discovered that the 86.1 percent of the students who waited until the last twenty four hours to submit their papers, earned a mean score of 64.04 out of 100. The early submission score was a mean of 64.32, which is equal to a B. However, the average score continued to drop every hour. Moreover, the students who waited until the last minute of submission had the lowest average grades of 59 out of 100, which is a C. This is a full grade lower than the average Feeney .

Many proponents of procrastination argue that is has positive effects on a student. Notably, many students believe that they work better when they are under pressure. However, according to psychologist Timothy Pychyl, the director of the Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University, this is just a myth. He states that there is not any evidence that legitimately proves that students perform better in a hurry Pychyl . Furthermore, many of the students that use this claim to justify their actions of procrastination have not even tried to work when they are calm. Just because they get the work done, does not mean that they did the work well. These students put themselves in an uneasy position involving a surplus amount of unwanted stress, anxiety, and fatigue when they save their tasks until the last minute. Overall, these proponents do not have a valid reason for procrastinating when it comes to school related tasks.

Sometimes you need to go back to basics to get the most out of your study sessions. Scroll down this graphic and check yourself: how many of these good practices are you following regularly? Source The International Association of Book keepers, designed by Reflect Digital

A lot of the time when students sit down to study they feel like theyre about to climb Mount Everest. A long and painful time awaits them... This is hardly an inspiring circumstance to be faced with. Its easy to see why a lot of teens are suffering from the motivation blues. Unfortunately, the victim of the motivation blues is almost always productivity.Its incredibly difficult to engage in a productive study session if youre not feeling motivated.

Were going to take the task that feels like Mt Everest, and give it a make over so it now feels like a brisk walk. Not a walk in the park. Any productive study session requires some effort. Heres what your teen needs to do.Instead of thinking they have the daunting task of revising 10 weeks of class notes yuck , your teen needs to set themselves just one meaningful task. Only one.

This could be:
Making their own diagram of cellular respiration
Drawing a force diagram for physics
Solving 10 quadratic equations
Making an essay plan for the novel theyre reading in English
Reading the instructions for an assignment theyve just been given
Attempting a past exam to test where theyre at
Making some flash cards for one of their subjects
Whatever your teen can think would be a useful task to complete