<p>thisyearsgirl, go to the beginning of the thread and listen to the NPR broadcast on procrastination–they recommend a book, and the advice they give also helps a bit…</p>
<p>I can totally relate to you, though. I procrastinate for the exact same reason as you…let me know if you figure a way around it!</p>
<p>As a college freshman who just found out she has a 3.91 gpa, I procrastinate. I always have and always will. The only time I’ve ever had a teacher call my home, personally, was to tell my mom what an amazing paper I wrote on the isreal palestine conflict, the best he’d read in a long time, and I wrote it in 1 hour at 1am the night before it was due. I wrote a 10 page research paper in one night, and did extensive research for it the night before (at green library in stanford). I waited to start my college applications until november, and I got into my first choice. I strongly think it’s a bad idea to start college apps in the summer, mostly because you can change a lot on that first semester senior year, and it’s rediculous to do something 1/2 a year in advance that can be done easily in a week.</p>
<p>I don’t like that I procrastinate, but it works for me. The rush of “okay, kathryn, you NEED to do this now,” puts me in exactly the right mental place for writing papers. My language sharpens, I know exactly how to format, and things tend to work out well. If procrastination works for your kids, let them do it. Even in college, procrastination has worked just fine for me. It deffinetly takes being bright in the first place for it to work, but if you’re bright enough to be able to do something in an hour that takes other people a week, why waste your time? You can’t get any better than an A.</p>
<p>ok, I’ll step down off of my soapbox now.</p>
<p>I am a pretty bright straight A student rounded in math/sci and art and I procastinate alot.</p>
<p>Some people wonder how I get all my work done… they believe I live 48 hour days. I usually get home from school at 4, then I’ll eat and then play online games till 7:30. Then I’ll have dinner and play piano (for fun, I self taught myself) for an hour. By the time I start doing my homework it’s usually 9pm.</p>
<p>Why do I procastinate? Sometimes, you just need a burst of imagination or creativity, and I usually find this when I’m away from my work. But once I find my ideas and start the work, the working doesn’t stop. Although I start my homework at 9pm, I usually finish with an hour or two and then bedtime at 11:30pm. And still, I manage to produce high quality work. My mom finds me a huge slacker because whenever she comes into my room, I’m always on MSN or playing Warcraft. What she doesn’t know is that I DO work, it’s just that high quality doesn’t require alot of time to do. </p>
<p>You don’t have to work for long hours to “work hard”, but rather, by working productively. Most of my friends will spend 5 hours on and off their homework, splitting their time between work and play. On the other hand, I spend 4-6 hours on the computer playing straight and only 1 to 2 hours on my hwk, and yet I still manage to get much higher marks…</p>
<p>so yeh, sure you child may procastinate alot, but usually the best work doesnt require the longest amount of time spent on it</p>
<p>
Great question … in our house Mom is a disciplined master planner so she starts things early, makes steady progress, and leaves lots of time for any unplanned glitches … while Dad, me, starts as late as possible and is frequently cussing at printers, copies, or traffic (anything that is putting my perfectly timed arrival at risk).</p>
<p>Child #1 takes after Mom and is a joy to parent through school (for Mom who doesn’t feel the need to nag and for Dad who marvels at child #1’s discipline). Child #2 takes after Dad and starts very late and almost always finishes produces very high quality work … Dad understands and tries to nudge child #2 to more proactive work habits which will help in college and in a real job … Mom is going nuts and is struggling with how this work style is OK (I’m politely saying Mom is trying to not nag so much). Child #3 we’re not sure about.</p>
<p>It’s seems to me the more challenging parenting situation is the structured-planner parent trying to understand (and not nag) the less structured-procrasinating child. Besides my home there are probably 100 topics in CC from planner parents concerned about their procrastinating kid and their college apps / school work.</p>
<p>Wow, these are some great replies. And it’s really nice to get some insight into why some people procrastinate. It’s just that, well, for all of us UN procrastinators, it drives us nuts. But if it works for people, well then I guess that is what works for them. This is really interesting and I appreciate all the replies!! :)</p>
<p>And for the poster that remarked about us not being able to help with 3rd grade homework, lol, well, I exaggerated just a LITTLE bit. :)</p>
<p>Okay. I procrastinate. (And CC helps!!!) In a sense at any rate. I’m often waay overcommitted and segments of my daily/monthly life read like a “Peril’s of Pauline” script. But on many things, I’ve learned not to procrastinate. And TheMom has never recovered from what she regarded as an indignity of the red “Last Bag” tag being on one of our pieces of luggage when I cut one of our early trips to the airport a tad too close to comfort. (She, however, comes from the other extreme…her stepmother would want to get to the airport eight hours before a flight.) The result is that I have a sort of triage as I move through the day/week/month and my To Do list is a constant companion.</p>
<p>Well, she wrote more on her rough draft of her essay today and actually let me read it. I was so thoroughly moved by what she wrote, that it set my mind so much at ease. Made me have a lump in my throat just to read it. She told me, “it’s been in my head all along…”</p>
<p>Don’t ya just love 'em? :)</p>
<p>My name is Sybbie, and I am a procrastinator (in my student life but not in my work life).</p>
<p>I bow my head in shame because I got an assignment in one of my classes last friday (in lieu of an exam), due today at 5 pm and I just e-mailed it out at 3:45 (thank goodness we are regrouping from the transit strike and I did not have to schlep into the city). I have no excuse because I have been on vacation all week. </p>
<p>I had the paper all written out in my head but my fingers just did not want to put it all into a word document. I would write a few paragraphs, read a few CC postings. Write a few paragraphs, walk the dog, write a few paragraphs watch reality tv (do these people realize they must go back home)? You get the drift. </p>
<p>D was playing the parent nag nag nag role- Did you finish your paper yet? Yes, karma is real and now I know how she must feel when I did it to her (yeah, bad mommy flipped kid the bird behind her back).</p>
<p>So to call my D a procrastinator, I could only say that she gets it naturally. This year she said that her time management skills really kicked in and she has more time to procrastinate, but she does get her work done and gloated about her grades for the term. I’m not mad at her,because when mine come in I will gloat at her :D</p>
<p>I wanted to respond earlier, but I kept putting it off 
. Yes, DD procrastinates, but how could she not when both DH and I do? She has learned from the best. So far, procrastination has not bitten her in the butt and she does great under pressure, but it would be nice to see her work well ahead. I don’t feel like I can say too much when I tend to procrastinate myself.</p>
<p>I’m a student procrastinating with apps right now. I think I just work a lot better when I’m under pressure- if I write something now, chances are I will change it until the deadline anyway. In the end, everything turns out pretty well. I have 8 college applications to do. All are due December 31/January 1. I’ve written about 1.5 essays total, and I have 4 essays to write still + the short answers. My mom is freaking out, but I do this ALL the time. I’ve learned to pull all nighters when necessary, and she hates that. I know it’s not a good habit, and hopefully college will break it, but I don’t see that happening.</p>
<p>I am a born procrastinator. I remember how in High School I would never start an essay before 9:PM the night before unless it was over 5 pages (then I’d start in the afternoon). So, while it bothered me that my daughter wrote her ED essay just days before the deadline, and said she’d do ther apps only if she got rejected, I knew where she was coming from. And she got into her ED school.
And by the way, I have the perfect job for a procrastinator - a journalist. With constant deadlines, it’s always “the last minute”.</p>
<p>funny you should say that catherine, I think that’s what I’m leaning towards right now! :)</p>
<p>I am a ex procrastinator. There is hope! </p>
<p>I started handing in essays early when i felt i had more control over my subjects and life. At university i chose to be here and i chose to take the class and i am paying for it. My father is always shocked about the sudden change in my attitude. Lucky for me we dont have to do essays to get into college, i realise that your D is choosing her college so it may be a different reason driving her procrastination. </p>
<p>It must be nerve racking having to sit back and wait. Poor parents!</p>
<p>Although sometimes i think the students who do things the night before can do quite well at college where you dont always have the time to spend hours and hours on each paper. I am really jealous of the kids who can do stuff the night before and still get decent grades. So very jealous. When i use to do it i would not fail but i would not achieve great marks either. Who knows, there may be a great skill in the making here!</p>
<p>As others have mentioned it could just be the daunting nature of college applications. If its what she really wants im pretty sure she will feel the heat soon enough and start on it. Who knows maybe she is already and just keeping it a secret to limit the stress (i use to do that alot… but i could just be a strange kid).</p>
<p>Hang in there!</p>
<p><em>edit</em> Oh i just read that she has already started on them. Im glad that you are more at ease now. Good luck.</p>
<p>I’m a freshman in college and what every one of you parents are describing fits me exactly. I have a four page narrative due tomorrow and I started it about an hour ago (10pm). Then I googled “procrastination” and found this feed. Then just so I could comment on it, I made an account. :)</p>
<p>I don’t know if you realize that you just resurrected a thread that’s been dead for five years. I just signed in (after years of not posting) to let you know :).</p>
<p>Also, I hate to break it to you, but it doesn’t really get better (the procrastination, that is). I’m supposed to be studying for the MCAT right now, but for some ungodly reason, I signed in to reply to you.</p>
<p>I think procrastination is highly underrated. Sure sometimes it can be a problem, but I think it can also be a pretty good tool for perfectionists to function effectively. I think sometimes we need to just trust our progeny. </p>
<p>Personally, I tend to procrastinate on things that I know will take all the time allocated to it. There are some things, like applications, proposals, briefings, etc, where you can keep editing and adding and refining until the drop dead date. For these things, I find it is much more effective to just procrastinate and do good job in a limited time span, than to be perfect, yet waste an inordinate amount of time. I know for myself, that I just perform better under pressure. That other time is better spent on doing something else. People need to develop both a good sense of when procrastination is appropriate and how much time to allocate to tasks, and eventually develop the confidence needed to procrastinate effectively.</p>
<p>I have to admit that when my kids procrastinate, it drives me crazy, but they seem to be figuring it out.</p>