Guide on How to Avoid Procrastination When Studying

Remember how you procrastinated studying for weeks only to realize you had a truckload of topics to read before the exam? Maybe students are guilty of this, always in the habit of procrastinating studying and other academic activities. Primarily, procrastination in school is at an all-time high, with several social activities calling one’s interest.

But, as a student, if you’re being true to yourself, you’d realize that procrastination affects your productivity and time management. While many students struggle with procrastination daily, there are helpful ways to cut down procrastination when studying and if you want to know, then get on this!

How to stop procrastinating in school

Many students are often in the habit of procrastinating when doing school activities. For many, it’s usually due to tiredness or perceived difficulty in tackling the work. But, procrastination only encourages you to pile up more work. There are so many ways students procrastinate, and some examples of procrastination in school include:

  • Spending time on social media instead of studying
  • Making up excuses to avoid doing school work
  • Doing important personal tasks at the wrong time
  • Binge-watching Netflix during study time

Maybe it would help if you knew some procrastination facts. This is what procrastination can do to you – it’s effects:

  • Bad academic performance
  • Rushing school activities last minute
  • Doing schoolwork wrongly
  • Inadequate time for research
  • Last-minute submission
  • Missed deadlines

Procrastination is challenging to handle, but determined students can:

  • Prioritize study time
  • Discipline themselves to finish tasks before rest
  • Break down task
  • Use the school library for schoolwork
  • Practice Time management

How to stop procrastinating on schoolwork

One of the significant school activities students procrastinate on is schoolwork. Why? The notion is that schoolwork is usually tricky and requires much time to solve. Hence, they prolong the time before doing it.

The reality about procrastinating school work is that they will always wait for you. Knowing this, to stop, here are some tips on how you can quit procrastinating for good:

  • Avoid perfectionism: Students mostly procrastinate because they want to submit close to excellent work. Once they realize it might be challenging, they quickly panic and lose interest. Avoid perfectionism and prioritize doing the task to the best of your ability.
  • Don’t be anxious – it’s not that serious: Anxiety is a common factor amongst students who procrastinate. Most of the time, students want to get a good grade on a subject but don’t know how to go about it. It builds anxiety and causes procrastination.
  • Remove distractions: Both internal and external distractions contribute to students’ procrastination. Eliminate things that bring distraction, and your attention will be focused on the task at hand.
  • Take study breaks: Certainly, schoolwork can be overwhelming, and it can cause students to abandon it until they have energy. Instead of abandoning the work, ration time, take intermittent breaks, and return to work later.
  • Set rewards: Rewarding yourself after completing a task is a way to trick yourself into finishing a task. Apply this metric to schoolwork, and procrastination will be eliminated.

How to stop procrastinating on homework

It’s almost impossible to find a student who doesn’t procrastinate on their homework. There are so many reasons involved, but students can handle procrastination by:

  • Asking for help: When you have challenging homework, instead of avoiding the work until the deadline, involve someone experienced in the field for guidance.
  • Breaking down the task: Instead of seeing the bulk of the work as overwhelming, practice breaking them down. Check your submission deadline and break the homework down to meet the deadline.
  • Joining a study group: Your study group serves as your accountability check. When you keep study groups, they check in on you and vice versa, and you can arrange to do homework together.
  • Imposing assignment consequence: As you can reward yourself, you can impose consequences for not doing your homework on time. Once there’s a consequence, you’ll be forced to finish on time.
  • Exercising discipline: Every student needs discipline for all of these to work. Discipline ensures that you ask for help, break down tasks, stay accountable to study peers, and ensure you carry out consequences.

As challenging as it might be, procrastination amongst students is a habit many students must break if the goal is to achieve academic success and excellence.