by David Parker
This doesn’t mean that Patricia needs to be concerned about overcoming her habitual procrastination overnight: remember, no one could make such a speedy transformation because overcoming habitual procrastination is a process that takes place over a long period of time. Patricia only needs to concern herself with whatever household tasks she’s agreed to take on. However, Patricia does need to abide by the first Golden Rule of Overcoming Procrastination, which appears in Chapter Nine of this book: “Always keep the promises that you make with yourself.” We can also place this Golden Rule in the context of a relationship by modifying it to say, “Always keep the promises that you make between yourself and your partner.”
However, should Patricia ignore that first Golden Rule by not taking care of the tasks that she agreed to because she found other things to do with her time, Colin is quite apt to feel betrayed, and who could blame him for feeling that way? Colin needs to see proof of a change in Patricia’s behavior, and should he not see that change, it’s likely that he’ll lose trust in her, and their relationship could suffer for it.
The Procrastinator in the Workplace
Jane is the manager of the accounting department in a mid-sized firm, and Sandy is a bookkeeping clerk in her department who happens to be a habitual procrastinator. When it comes to bookkeeping, Sandy is as skilled as any other bookkeeper in the department; however, Jane is not pleased with Sandy’s overall performance.
As manager, Jane is required to write an annual evaluation for each employee in her department and to then discuss each evaluation with her superior before presenting the evaluation to each worker. Here’s a shortlist of Jane’s observations of Sandy:
“Sandy avoids work. She not only wastes time and is inefficient, but she doesn’t pitch in when co-workers are busy, which is something I’ve asked her to do on countless occasions.”
“Sandy is also a persistent latecomer. She’s late almost each and every day. In fact, if I were asked what Sandy’s most consistent quality was, I would have to say it was her lateness.”
Jane concludes her evaluation with this personal assessment: “I’m sorry to say the following, but we’re understaffed in the accounting department and every worker there needs to perform a certain amount of work. It’s my opinion that Sandy’s good for excuses. Instead of getting things accomplished, she runs around in circles. Sandy seems a lot more concerned about her own welfare, than that of our organization. In short, Sandy’s attitude is quite poor.”
It’s not terribly difficult to predict that Sandy’s future with this organization may not last very long. If there’s a departmental cutback, Sandy will most likely lose her role; or management could decide to dismiss her at any time in the hope that someone new will show more drive.
Is There Anything that Sandy Can Do to Prevent Losing Her Job?
As long as Sandy has her position with this firm, there’s always a chance that she might change her ways. However, in realistic terms, there’s very little chance that she’ll do so, because Sandy has been quite set in her ways for quite a while. It’s sad to say, but there are persons who only change their ways after suffering a profound and personal setback that causes them to take stock of their situation, and of themselves.
Let’s imagine that Sandy sits down in Jane’s office for her annual evaluation and receives a copy of a document describing her performance, which Jane reads aloud to her. After hearing her poor evaluation, Sandy asks, “Is there anything I can do to improve?” Here’s what Jane might say:
“Sandy, I’m glad to see that you’re taking this evaluation seriously. We hired you to do be a bookkeeper in our department, and frankly, you haven’t been doing your share of the work. But that work still needs to be done, so the only solution has been for others to do portions of your work. I want you to take note of the following suggestions, and I hope to see an improvement in your performance:
“You need to become more of a worker amongst workers. If you see that another bookkeeper looks like he or she is buried in paperwork and you have nothing urgent on your desk, ask him or her if you can lend a helping hand. Please make an effort to pitch in.”
“My second point may come as a surprise to you, but we’re very aware that you’ve been coming in late almost every morning. We’re simply not in a position where we can allow you to come to work late every day, because if we let you do that, then we’d have to let everyone else do the same. In addition, there are people in the accounting department who have complained to me about your latenesses. They’ve asked if you’ve been given special privileges because they feel resentful that you’ve been getting away with coming in late, when they make a concerted effort to arrive at work on time. Please make an effort starting tomorrow to come in on time.”
“If someone criticizes your work or points out an error, try to take it as a helpful suggestion so that everyone benefits from it, and try not to make excuses for any errors on your part. We all make a mistake every now and then, that’s why pencils have erasers!”
“If you find that you’re puzzled by a task that you’re working on, bring it to the attention of someone who’s been with the department for a longer time than you have. They’ll tell you what to do, and that’s a lot better than trying to figure it out on your own and then running around in circles without an answer. There’s no shame in not knowing how to do certain functions, because you’re still relatively new here.”
To overcome procrastination doesn’t merely mean keeping busy at times when you used to goof off, it also means adopting a new way of life by not only being productive for your own sake, but for the people in your life as well. Whether the persons you interact with are close to you, or are colleagues in the workplace, being helpful to others is just as important as when you “do” tasks to help yourself.
Chapter Fifteen
Helping the Procrastinating Student
IN THE LAST CHAPTER, WE looked at close relationships between habitual procrastinators and non-procrastinators at home and in the workplace. We’ll now focus our attention on helping students who procrastinate.
When it comes to the subject of habitual procrastination and the student, parents are often more concerned about their child’s procrastinating ways than their child may be. This makes sense in an odd way—after all, if their child were truly concerned about his or her schoolwork, he or she probably wouldn’t be procrastinating in the first place. In any event, it’s always good when a parent notices any behavior in their child that has the potential to grow into a bad habit: whether it’s linked to the schoolroom, or not.
Habitual procrastination can prevent a grade school student from developing a solid foundation of concentration and learning, and it can also affect a high school student’s college plans, a college student’s career plans, or a returning student’s ability to obtain a General Equivalency Diploma (G.E.D.) or new job skills.
Why Do Students Procrastinate?
Students procrastinate for many of the same reasons that adults do, however, the biggest difference between the two is found in the consequences of their inaction. While an adult may suffer with an untidy home, it can usually be transformed into relative neatness, if only temporarily; however, a student who procrastinates may be followed by an educational transcript that reflects poorly upon him or her for some time to come. So, the old joke, “This will go down on your permanent record,” might offer little to laugh about. Here are some typical reasons why a student may procrastinate:
Because he or she never developed good study habits.
The student finds a particular subject to be boring and then treats it as a low priority by avoiding it.
A student finds a subject too complicated and, instead of dealing with the material, he or she backs away from it.
A student may use procrastination as an improvised method for coping with stress. This approach could be called, “out of sight, is out of mind.”
If procrastination has gone on for a long enough, the student may not be a
ware of any other ways of dealing with difficult schoolwork and projects.
How Do Students Procrastinate?
Back when I was a student, there weren’t nearly as many ways for someone to procrastinate as there are today. Back then, you might have the opportunity to have a long telephone call, to hang out on a street corner with friends, to watch one of the eight or nine broadcast television stations, or to stay up late listening to a transistorized AM radio tucked underneath your pillow.
Today, thanks to newer technologies and devices that have an almost instant appeal to younger folk, there are more ways to bide one’s time unproductively than ever before. Some of these potential distractions are:
Smart phones.
Text messages.
The Internet.
E-mail.
Chat rooms.
Instant messaging.
Social networking tools, like Twitter and Facebook.
Portable video games.
Hundreds of television channels via cable, satellite, or via the Internet.
Each of these devices has the power to dominate anyone’s time, and if your child has difficulty saying “no” to any of these distractions, then it’s you, the parent, who will need to take control of the situation.
Procrastination and the Grade School Student
I once spoke with a woman who said that her young daughter procrastinated with regard to her home reading assignments. She said this was because her child experienced difficulty concentrating in silence when she tried to sit down and read.
If you are reading this book specifically because you are trying to help a child who seems to have fallen into the habit of procrastination, you may have come directly to this chapter without reading the chapters that have appeared before it. If this is the case with you, then you may not have seen a point that has been repeated many times within this book, the observation that “Patience is the enemy of procrastination.”
It’s often the case that someone will procrastinate when they have a sense of urgency concerning a task, especially a task they perceive as being boring, complicated, or that holds no interest for them. One of the best ways that I have found to overcome procrastination is by slowly developing patience from within. This is something that you can teach your child to do by simply sitting down with he or she and demonstrating that a task can be worked through slowly and methodically. For an interesting example of a time when I personally witnessed the positive power of patience in an academic setting, read: “Many Procrastinators Find Themselves Easily Distracted from Their Tasks” which appears as the eighth “Aspect of Procrastination,” within Chapter Four.
If your child’s procrastination involves difficulty in reading or studying in silence, one good way to help your child is to simply sit down with him or her, and silently read along with your child. Have your child read one line silently, and then ask him or her to explain its meaning back to you. Then, continue on in that manner, line by line, reading in silence, and then stopping after each sentence, with your child relating to you what he or she believes the author is communicating to the reader.
Should you have a different view on what’s been read, communicate that, and show your child that different people can view the same passages in different ways. This will also show your child that you’re not asking him or her to do something that you’re unwilling to do yourself. Be sure to point out to your child that he or she is able to work in silence and is capable of critically thinking about, and retaining, what they’ve read. You’ll not only be giving your child important new skills, you’ll also be increasing the amount of quality time that you spend with your child. In doing that, your child will feel important and loved, and you’ll have an opportunity to get to know the person that your child is growing into.
Here are some additional suggestions for helping children who procrastinate:
Let your child see that completing a simple task can be fun by making an enjoyable game out of it.
For instance, you might suggest that you both play “The Completion Game.” Give your child a task, and then ask him or her to guess the last step of the task before commencing action on it. Many people find it easier to begin working on a task when they have a mental picture of the last step involved in completing that task. Often, once the procrastinator has the first and last steps of a task in mind, the remaining steps fall into place.
For more about this, read “Think ‘Beginning and End,’” in Chapter Thirteen.
Try making your child’s school assignments interesting and exciting. One way to do this is to get to know your child’s interests, and then try relating their school work to those things that he or she pays a lot of attention to.
Keep track of your child’s tasks and reward him or her with verbal praise for each task completed. In addition, ask your child to mentally reward him or herself every time he or she completes a task.
Teach your child by setting an example. Demonstrate that you’re not asking him or her to do anything that you’re not willing to do yourself.
Have frequent communication with your child’s teacher. Know what subjects are being taught and what is being expected academically.
If necessary, seek the assistance of your school’s social worker or guidance counselor.
Read books that deal with developing positive parenting skills.
Remember: Demonstrating to your children that they can learn to develop patience within themselves doesn’t just apply to reading, writing, arithmetic and other subjects in the schoolroom. Learning how to curb impatience and the frustration that often accompanies it, is vital if your child is to grow into a healthy adult who’s prepared for the challenges he or she will likely face as a partner in a relationship, as an employee, and in everyday life.
Procrastination and the Teenager
It’s often our friends who notice our peculiarities long before we do, and such was the case when a high school classmate said to me: “You never finish anything, Dave.” Feeling that I was being unfairly criticized, I vehemently denied his allegation, but he immediately backed up his statement with proof: “For example, you start reading a book, but you never finish it; and then you start reading a new book!” Many years went by before I discovered that not only was my friend correct, but that his observation was shrewdly on-target.
High school students face an entirely different set of pressures than younger children, and many of these pressures are societal. For example, in just about every state, a high school student may drop out of school if he or she meets the age requirement. There’s no telling just how many high school students drop out each year, if only because they never developed good study habits, or left because they felt they’d fallen too far behind in their schoolwork to ever catch up. This is one particularly good reason for students to avoid falling into the habit of procrastination.
By the time most high school graduates have completed their studies, a good many have been taught Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion, which states: “An object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion until an external force is applied to it.” We can adapt that law to fit procrastination by saying that: “A procrastinator who is not actively ‘do’-ing, tends to remain motionless until an external or motivating force is applied to that procrastinator.” This rule is as true for high school students, as it is for adults.
What Can a Parent Do to Help a Teen Who Procrastinates?
While no parents would deliberately raise their child to become a procrastinator, nevertheless, some parents don’t know how to prevent their children from falling into that negative lifestyle. Just like adults who habitually procrastinate, many children also resist taking action until they have no other options, and because of that, they usually don’t feel pride, joy, or even a sense of relief after they’ve completed a task they worked so hard at avoiding. More commonly, if they feel only one emotion, it’s resentment against the institution or individual that has forced them into action.
As a result of this resentment, the teenaged procrastinator feels as if he were a marionette whose strings are being pulled and controlled by puppet-masters: his actions dictated by others. So, it’s understandable if a teen, believing that he’s constantly being coerced into taking action, might want to break free from what he perceives of as an adult world that seems intent on forever manipulating and controlling him.
What then can parents do to help their teenager who procrastinates when the teen may misinterpret that help as interference, or worse, as an attempt at control, which the teen may then seek to rebel against? Unfortunately for the teen and whatever he or she might otherwise wish, a parent’s first priority is to protect their child, which includes correcting errant behaviors such as habitual procrastination. However, at the same time, parents need to be aware that their teenager’s rebelliousness may actually be misdirected self-anger, coming as a consequence of his or her own procrastination, and it would probably do the teen a world of good to have this pointed out to him or her.
Like anyone else of any other age, teens can stop acting upon a task as a result of feeling overwhelmed. There are different reasons why the feeling of being overwhelmed seems to paralyze procrastinators to the degree that it does. Here are just a few of them:
Sometimes a procrastinator will feel overwhelmed after convincing himself that he can’t possibly accomplish a particular task because:
• The task is too complicated.
• The procrastinator believes that he lacks the sufficient intelligence, motivation, or intestinal fortitude necessary to accomplish the task.
