Welcome to Part 3 in Gaetano’s series on procrastination. We know the causes. Time to talk about the effects.
Procrastination Mini-Series – Effects
by Gaetano Caruana
Procrastination seems to be fun to do at first but it won’t take long until the procrastinator feels the effects of his/her choice. Procrastination has devastating effects on the person who does it and is completely not worth it. In this part of the procrastination mini-series, I am going to highly some of the procrastination effects, with the hope of making you more aware about procrastination and motivate you to avoid it or work hard to beat it.
Sense of guilt: Even though it is you who choose to procrastinate, you still feel guilty for doing it. The fact that you waste time instead of getting things done makes you feel bad with yourself. Even though, with a lot of effort and working extreme hours, you manage to make it by the deadline of a particular task, you will still feel guilty. This is because you will have doubts whether you could have produced something of better quality if you made good use of your time.
Become a liar: In today’s world nobody works alone. Everyone is part of a team and every team member depends on other members. The fact that you procrastinate and fall behind schedules makes you feel bad, since you keep back the whole team with you. When asked to give reasons for the delays, you start lying to find excuses to cover up your procrastination problem.
Prone to other vices: A study conducted by Fuschia Sirois and Timothy Pychyl of Carleton University, clearly shows that procrastinators are more prone to start other vices such as smoking or abusing alcohol. Starting new vices will further make it difficult for you to stop procrastinating and will further make your life miserable
Health Problems: Living a procrastinator life is not easy! Procrastination has both psychological and physical effects. The same study by Fuschia Sirois and Timothy Pychyl shows that college students that procrastinate in their schoolwork are more likely to have health problems such as suffering from insomnia, diet and exercise problems
Gaetano Caruana writes for the FruitfulTime Blog, where you’ll find the free ebook Stop Procrastination Now.
________
Thanks, Gaetano!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
You might not think so, but procrastination also lowers a person’s self-esteem eventually. You don’t accomplish things in a timely matter, you let people down, you are surrounded by unfinished projects, etc. Luckily, conversely, finishing those things you’ve procrastinated on will slowly but surely raise your self-esteem again. Thanks for a good series!
Dear Liz,
Hi there, my name is Shameez and I am a first Year Journalism and Media studies student in Grahamstown, South Africa.
In our practical blog course this term, we were required to design a blog with some pertinence to issues that prospective first years may be experiencing, and procrastination was HIGH up on the list.
I subsequently wrote an opinion piece titled
“Procrastination ? Get off your bum – moss is overrated”. The direct Url is:
http://kaleidoscopeeyes123.blogspot.com/2008/10/procrastination-get-off-your-bum-moss.html
I delved into some of the possible causes and what students may be able to do if they were to find themselves regularly in this predicament.
Thank you for a wonderfully informative post.
All the best
Shameez
Dealing recently with the subject of procrastination. Instead of doing what I was procrastinating about, I began writing about it.
Talk about procrastinating. But it has been great for my understanding of myself. There are times when procrastinating has its upside.
Nothing than understanding what can become of a chronic procrastinator, the way you outline it with guilt, lying, other vices and health problems. Much truth in that. And of course there can be a combination of all of them.
Dear liz
My name is brighton nkhata a student at malawi college of medicine.today we were given an assignment on the effects of procrastination thanks for your notes they have helped me in reference
Thank you, Brighton! 🙂