by:  Connor Fitzgerald

The only habit I have never been able to break throughout my entire lifetime is procrastination. The definition of procrastination by google is the action of delaying or postponing something; but, I think it is so much more than that. It’s a lifestyle. No matter how many times I say to myself that I want to evenly distribute the workload, or evenly spread out the work over a few days, it never works. After every long term project or assignment that I shouldn’t have stayed up for, I think to myself… “Why am I so stupid? Why did I have to leave this until the last night?”

However, after being in high school for little over a year now I have come to the realization that procrastinating isn’t a bad thing after all. I rely on it. Even though it may seem crazy, I work better under stress and I have been able to adapt to procrastinating.

Now that I am a teenager and know everything, I look back to seventh grade and realized that my procrastination habits developed at a very young age.

I can clearly remember one May night in 2010 as a specific example. It was four-thirty in the morning and all I can remember was me, lying down on my computer room floor and staring at the ceiling. I was at the point of extreme exhaustion. I thought I was going to pass out and fall dead right on the spot. My hand was cramped up, beads of sweat were pouring down my face, my eyes were the color of blood, and my body ached as if I had just wrestled a shark. You would think I had just survived fighting in the war. Or I was a fisherman returning after the grueling months out at sea. Nope. I had spent the night, and previous day, feverishly attempting to complete my circulatory project for seventh grade science. A science project. The project had been assigned weeks ago, maybe even months ago, but what did I do? I waited to the last night as a procrastinator would do. I couldn’t muster together enough energy to do the project any earlier. I thought it might be a good idea to wait until the last night to complete one of the most important, and difficult, projects of the year.  Instead, I waited and had fifteen hours of homework in one night.

Let me tell you from experience, it is not a good idea. Or so I thought. I could have worked on the project thirty minutes a day, for two weeks, and would have had no stress. But when it came time for grades, I did pretty well. All of the crammed hard work and stress resulted in a very good grade. And from then on, I guess I took it to heart that procrastinating might be the best solution.

I have continued to have the same outlook towards school and have carried the philosophy of procrastination with me through high school. One thing I remember all of my teachers telling me, year after year, was, “It will catch up to you one day. You need to change your habits now, so it doesn’t become a problem down the road.” I understand exactly what these teachers are saying, but I don’t necessarily agree with them. I work better under stress. I think that I can focus a lot better and even if I do end up staying up until all hours of the night I manage and catch up on sleep another time. I don’t mind procrastinating and I don’t think that will ever change.

One important point, that I want to make very clear, is procrastinating may not be for you! I don’t advise anyone one of you to go out and ruin your study habits by any means. But for me, procrastinating is not just a ‘terrible idea’; it’s a lifestyle.