Dear Cindy – Procrastination Problem

I'm a first-year university student, and I've just left high school.

Throughout school, and even now, I've been having trouble motivating myself to do work for my degree units and assignments. It seems I have always had problems with motivation, struggling to begin work on something until it's too late. It is not as though I achieve bad marks – my final high school result was much better than expected – but I am getting frustrated not being able to force myself to do things.

Is it because I have never had career path? Some days I think I want to go into medicine, the next day it's law. And I don't understand what made me do what I'm doing now (creative industries).

Do you have any suggestions to combat my chronic procrastination?

Sincerely,

C

Procrastination is not unusual to high school students and to people, like you, who don't have a definite career path. After all, two of the frequent causes of procrastination are feeling a task lacks relevance (which is the way that many students see their high school curriculum) and a lack of interest (which is tied to the first point, and magnified by not knowing what you want to do).

But it's also true that the source of discipline to complete tasks in university, career, and adult life has to be more internal than in high school, when teachers and parents were watching you all the time and making sure you got things done.

Other roots of procrastination, which you may have, but don't stand out based on what you've said in your query, include: having (almost) unreachable standards; fear of failure (or fear of success); self-doubt; not knowing what's expected of you; lack of skills, training, and/or information to do the task; environmental conditions (e.g., distractions, lack of needed materials); physical conditions (e.g., fatigue, overwork).

In your case, the first thing you must do is decide what you want to do. Go to your university's career center and speak to a counselor and ask about the career assessment tools that they offer. You can also do some of the exercises in our self assessment section. Having a vision of where you want to go in your future – and being excited about it – is a great motivator.

Next, you should work on anything in your own behavior that is causing or enabling your procrastination. What you need to do depends on whether what's hindering you is "real" (e.g., fatigue, lack of materials) or intangible (e.g., self-doubt, fear of failure).

The real things are the easiest to deal with. If it's something real, like fatigue – get more sleep, exercise, and/or eat a healthier diet. Or if it's overwork, see if you can cut something out of your schedule, or see if you can schedule your time more effectively. Maybe you need someone to help you out occasionally with mundane chores that take up time or, if you have one, cut back on your job hours.

But how about the intangibles? Handling these depends on your personality: What do you respond more to – logic or bribery? For example, if you say, "I'm not in the mood now, I'll do it later." If logic is your thing, tell yourself why waiting until later doesn't make sense, and relate the work that you'd rather not do to your ultimate goal. If bribes are your thing, tell yourself you can watch your favorite show only after it's done. Does the big picture scare you? Get a sense of the whole project, then break things down into smaller, doable units. Do you fear failure? Dwell instead on past successes, set realistic standards and goals, and if the fear is based on a perceived weakness in your approach or understanding (e.g., you have a paper to write, and you've never mastered the art of the conclusion), ask a professor or peer for help.

Unfortunately, there's no panacea for procrastination, because its cause and cure depend on the individual, and stopping it takes effort.