Managing Procrastination

at Finals Time

As final exams near, many students experience a rise in anxiety, especially if they label themselves as "procrastinators" or perceive that they have procrastinated leading up to this time. One key cause of procrastination is "temporal discounting," or prioritizing something with immediate value (social media, YouTube, and so on) over something that offers value down the road. "We really don't have a lot of empathy for our future selves," says Angelyn Francis, the narrator of this insightful video from Canadian magazine Maclean's about procrastination. Professor Tim Pychyl, in the video, identifies procrastination as not a time management issue but an emotion regulation issue -- "the use of avoidance to feel better." Sharing this explanation of procrastination can help students shift perspective about why they put things off and what they may be able to do about it.

When you are working with a student who self-identifies as a procrastinator, you can ask questions that help them separate themselves from the label, take a realistic look at why they are avoiding certain tasks, and take action steps toward handling what they have put off. Here are some ideas:

What are you turning in on time right now? Why do you think that is?

Which tasks do you find yourself avoiding? How do you feel about those tasks?

What action might you take to address a negative feeling about a task so that you can move toward completing it?

If you were to complete [a certain task] on time this week, how would that benefit "future you?" How would that feel? What would it tell you about yourself?

How can you break a big task (studying for a final, for example) into smaller parts? Where can you put each of those parts into your schedule?

In what way might you celebrating completing a part of this task?

A well-positioned coaching question can set a student on a better path toward doing their best work at finals time, shedding limiting habits and mind frames that no longer serve them.

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