Health & Wellness Center Staff
@lfchealthandwellness
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Disclaimer: This column does not constitute medical advice and should not be used as a substitute for mental health treatment. If you have a specific concern or situation that requires help, you should always consult with a professional mental health therapist.
Dear Therapist,
I have always struggled with procrastination and motivation, but it’s recently been worse than ever. Now that finals are coming up, I’m starting to get scared that I won’t be able to finish my classes. I feel guilty that I can’t manage my time better and I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do about it.
-Anxious Procrastinator
Dear Anxious Procrastinator,
Thank you for your question. For most college students, it is normal and understandable to delay doing your assignments, or wish you had more time to spend on them. This is a common part of the college experience, especially when there is a lot on your plate, including outside work and social events.
Although scientific studies show that procrastination is associated with higher levels of stress, depression, and anxiety, it is important to remember that this may not be a causal relationship (i.e., anxiety may be a factor that causes procrastination rather than vice versa). And procrastination becomes a problem that you should address when it interferes with your ability to successfully complete your assignments or achieve your goals.
There are countless skills that can help you with time management, such as breaking up assignments into smaller tasks, creating a clear schedule, and working with a friend or peer so that you can hold each other accountable. It is important to practice these skills now, as they will only become more useful as you progress in your career. However, as I’m sure you are aware, procrastination often has underlying psychological causes that are too deep to be solved with a simple learning of time management skills.
Rather than pinpointing the specific behaviors that you use to procrastinate, it may be more useful to look at the feelings that you are avoiding by procrastinating. For many people, procrastination is an unconscious, self-perpetuating form of self-sabotage. For example, you might be avoiding a fear of failure, or a fear of a professor negatively judging you. If you wait until the last minute to complete an assignment, you can protect yourself from the possibility of being judged as inadequate by telling yourself that your resulting negative grade is due to not having enough time to put in your best effort. This negative grade will then serve to reinforce your fear of failure, which will make you want to avoid your next assignments, so as not to feel that way again.
Everyone at some point gets at least a few grades or feedback on work that they are ashamed of, and it is normal to want to avoid those feelings of inadequacy. But next time, rather than succumbing to those fears and insecurities by avoiding them, you might confront them head on by using them as motivators to produce work that you can be proud of. You can also use therapy to explore some of the reasons you might personally be procrastinating, learn how to grow from any previous setbacks, and begin to break the cycle of self-sabotage.
-Therapist