As my project's day is based on procrastination , allow me to explain what Procrastination really is. Many people, especially teenagers, teen to procrastinate. In order to understand why teenagers procrastinate, we must first explore secondary school life.

Introduction to secondary school life by a Secondary 2 student( Absolutely not a procrastinator):

Guess it’s time for me to shed light on what secondary school life is all about, eh? Basically, secondary school life revolves around one word. Just one.

WORK.

When it comes to work for most people ( Including me in the past), it would usually come with words like stress, procrastination, idiotic, useless. However, work in secondary school can be fun, enriching and interesting. Ironic, isn’t it?

In doing project work with your friends, you can benefit in terms of leadership, teamwork, empathy, understanding and not to mention, your friendship will grow stronger over the project work. Most importantly of all, is your personal development. Through work, you will have better time management, stronger sense of responsibility, and better leadership.

Back to me:

Sadly, many teenagers fail to grasp these few points. With so much work and learning to be done, why is it that we still see so many teenagers in malls, arcades and computer cafes? Are they escaping from something?

This brings me back to my earlier topic, Procrastination. Procrastination refers to the counterproductive deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. Simply put, it means that people, especially teenagers, put off work to a later date due to certain reasons.

As a student surrounded by tones of procrastinators, I feel obliged to help my fellow mates wear off the habit of procrastination.

Let’s spark off this section with a quote from William James, “ Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task”

Indeed, with work not being done, we constantly have to worry from it. Slowly, it will build up, causing more stress and people to procrastinate.

But why do people do that? One main reason is Perfectionist.

Perfectionist: “ A propensity for being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet extremely high standards.”

Everyone wants their work to be the best piece of work they have ever done, me included. To accomplish that, they plan their work, and decide to have lots and lots of research, up to the point where the mere thought of it gives them stress. However, stop and think, “ When is enough, enough?”

Hence, with reference to a few sources, I have discovered a few ways for students to stop procrastinating.

1. List down the pros and cons of procrastinating and list them down. Next, reflect. You will find that Perfection is almost impossible to achieve.

2. Allow yourself to make mistakes. One of the bad things about Perfectionist is that they don’t permit themselves to make mistakes. However, I believe that even great minds like Issac Newton and Einstein makes mistakes!

3. Encourage yourself. Wearing off the habit of procrastinating is not something that can be done overnight. Start by encouraging yourself through self talk( I’m the best, etc), patting yourself for your small accomplishments.

With this, I conclude my introduction.