As a university student and a procrastinator myself, I agree to some extent with the disadvantages of procrastinating. However, I must also acknowledge that there are undoubtedly advantages to procrastinating as well, especially for students.
First and foremost, procrastination actually provides students with better ideas and improvements for their work. How so, you may ask. Well, there are a handful of people who only obtain a mass flow of ideas and motivation to complete their work when working under immense pressure or strict timing. Using my personal experience as an example, when I first receive a task from a lecturer, I am often anxious about what should be done and how it should be done. In this case, rather than endlessly worrying about the task assigned to me, I would instead take a breather and procrastinate because it provides me time to calm myself down and rearrange my thoughts before starting on the said task. On the contrary, if I were to jump directly into working on it rather than taking the time to fully understand the requirements and the lecturer's expectations of the task, I might not be able to produce a work of high quality with my utmost ability, even if I could complete it much earlier than scheduled. Hence, the difference in work quality might hinder one's academic performance and result in the long run, and in turn contribute greatly to their stress and motivational levels.
Besides that, I believe procrastination also enriches one's creativity. For example, in the literary society exists people who frequently encounter a mental inhibition known as writer's block, whereby writers are unable to create new works or proceed with existing works due to various reasons such as burnout, stress, lack of inspiration, etc. When a writer's flow of creativity is disrupted by negative emotions, it results in cases where they are unable to write to their maximum potential. When this happens, writers usually take some time off from their work to relax by going for walks, taking one-day trips, reading books, watching movies, and so on. Taking myself as an example, I am a university student majoring in English Education, and I spend the majority of my time writing. Whenever I get into writer's block, I would go out and take a breath of fresh air or perhaps do something I enjoy, like watching my favourite movie series on Netflix or making DIY crafts at home. Alternatively, I also take walks around my neighbourhood and engage in idle chats with my neighbours to gain inspiration, providing me the chance to perceive the world through the eyes of a different perspective. In times like these, inhaling the scent of freshly cut grass by the roadside inspires me to metaphorise it in expressing the naivety and greenery of youth, and listening to vehicles drive by in a flash reminds me of the flow of time that passes in the blink of an eye.
On that note, though I believe procrastination is an extremely useful hack for students when it comes to completing assignments and projects, it must be utilised appropriately. If procrastination is exploited or taken advantage of, the consequences that follow will be dire. Before deciding to procrastinate, one must consider multiple sides of a story, the time, the capability, the mental capacity, the self-discipline, and the circumstances. With that being said, I must also mention that procrastination does not necessarily work for all, so it is better to try it out first, before committing to it on a long-term basis. This is to prevent yourself from forming a bad habit of using “procrastinating for inspiration” as an excuse for laziness. In conclusion, this article is written with the primary purpose of spreading awareness among not only students but also educators and parents about the potential benefits of procrastinating, in which not all students who procrastinate are lazy, and not all students who are lazy procrastinate. Procrastination is not equivalent to laziness.
Kelly Tan (tanjialing.55@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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