Don’t try to deny it- procrastination is something we all do. I don’t know of any human that has never procrastinated before; for high-school students, procrastination is the norm.

For me, it’s hard enough balancing the short-term assignments that are due the next day that procrastination on long-term assignments becomes inevitable. I just sit there and let the assignments, projects, and tests to study for pile on top of each other. And on the rare instances where I begin a project early, I lose focus and motivation within the first thirty minutes – why work on this today when I could work on it tomorrow or the day after?

It’s gotten to the point where “this project is impossible to do the night before” doesn’t sound like a threat, but an achievable goal to me. In fact, the very words that you’re reading right now are the product of my procrastination; I’ve had three weeks to write this blog post.

I used to tell myself that I produce my best work under procrastination because I work well under stress. But this blog post has given me time to reflect, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason why I choose to procrastinate is because it forces me to focus. When the panic of a quick deadline kicks in, I’m able to make myself complete the task at once.

The result of procrastination forces me to sit there, focus, and finish. On the other hand, giving myself what would be considered ample amounts of time lets me lose interest and move onto something else. Doing a big assignment all at once may make my brain feel like it’s going to explode, but also drives me to concentrate more than anything else does.

I’m not at all encouraging procrastination – but then again, procrastination doesn’t need to be encouraged because it’s innate. Everyone procrastinates when given a longer deadline; it’s just a matter of what how long it takes for the panic to kick in.