The procrastination in Teenagers

For sure, when you read this title, you said “ Here my parents go again trying to annoy me”, and don’t feel bad, I've also thought that. To be honest, I as a teenager felt like I was stabbing myself when I was writing this, but when I started to investigate this theme, I was able to identify myself with some stuff, and I think you too, that’s why I invite you to read it and after, if you want, let me know how did you feel 🙂

To abord this issue, we need to know where the word came from and what it means. The word Procrastination comes from the Latin meaning to postpone till tomorrow, however, it also comes from the Greek word Akrasia, which means doing the opposite of something that helps us.

Now, how does it show up in teenagers?

A lot of times, when teenagers are studying, they get distracted a lot. For example, when they’re doing homework that bored them, they start doing it, but after 10 minutes they’re talking with friends, hearing music, on social media, they go to eat something in the fridge, etc, and when they see, they’ve been on the same homework for 3 hours, it’s late, so they have to sleep because they have school.

These are some of the causes of procrastination in teenagers: 

1. Insecurity: Not having confidence in yourself and in what you can do. For example, a teenager could think: I cannot do this homework because math is hard for me, so I'll do it tomorrow.

2. Perfectionist: Even tho being a perfectionist in some ways may be good, there’s something bad and that is being afraid of failure, for perfectionists everything has to be good, and they cannot be any mistakes, that’s why they’re afraid of the homework.

3. Low tolerance to frustration:  Some Teens don’t know how to deal with frustration, and instead of searching for another alternative, they’ll want to leave what they’re doing.

 4. Emotional overreaction: For some people is difficult to regulate their emotions, they may feel overwhelmed easier than other people. For example: when they can’t control their emotions of frustration or anger, this could block them from homework, or in other words, they won’t be able to concentrate on it.

Let’s see how not getting over Procrastination from the beginning, harms us enormously. Here I’ll mention some of the ways that it may harm us:

1. Anxiety: Due to postponing the homework for another day, they may meet with a bag full of homework that they have to do, and that little by little brings anxiety.

2. The feeling of Chaos: Having a lot of homework to do, the teens can get to ask themselves things like: “Will I be able to finish all the homework for tomorrow?”, this can lead them to frustration and to feel like they're incapable of finishing all of the things.

3. Academically, Laborally, and Socially: Leaving the homework for the last day will affect you a lot. For example, if you’re working, procrastinating may lead you to get fired, and with your homework, you may leave some important info out due to the lack of time that you have to finish.

Now, to avoid this from happening to us, we should:

  1.  Remove Distractions:  This could be:

•  Notifications from Instagram
• Friends that are writing to you 
• A Serie of Streaming
• Games on the phone (or even Xbox)
• Hunger (A lot of times when we’re studying something that we do not like we feel hungry, but, is not that we want to eat something this is a way to have an excuse for not doing our homework)
• Notifications from Discord
• And finally, Youtube

To remove the distraction, it could help you put your phone on Do Not Disturb, like this, you’ll be able to concentrate and have a better efficiency while you’re studying.

2. Comfy place:  Always try to study in a place where you don’t get distracted and you feel comfortable doing your homework ( in my case, I like to be on the sofa in the living room, is a calm place and it relaxes me).

3. Schedules: Select an hour to study and the time you're going to do it. That’ll help you to be more diligent and to focus way more while studying. Abraham Lincoln once said: 

“ A responsible person has an attitude of esteem and respect for his person and brings the same values to the task in which he is participating on. You can’t escape from the responsibility of tomorrow by avoiding it today”

So, to finish, procrastination is something that affects us all from a very early age, we have to fight it with discipline, order, and diligence, if you feel like you can’t fight it on your own, ask for help from your parents, older brothers or sisters, or trusted friends too, but don’t let it win you over.