Helping students (and profs) who procrastinate
One of the most important things to recognize about procrastination is that (almost) everyone does it! You’ll see this over and over if you scroll through these pages, but procrastination is NOT an issue of laziness or apathy. Far from it! Multiple scientific studies show that procrastination is an issue of negative emotions related to the task at hand—in this case, school or writing.
Before you read further, we encourage you to consider your own relationship with procrastination—how often do you do it? How much do you beat yourself up over it? How do you get out of it? You may consider sharing these reflections with your students, if you’re comfortable, when the subject comes up. It turns out most procrastinators feel a sense of shame, and feel that they are all alone, even though nothing could be further from the truth!
Scroll down for classroom suggestions and to read more on our research.
“At the start of a given task, consider the next action: ‘What’s the next action I’d take on this if I were going to do it?’ Maybe you would open your email. Or perhaps you would put the date at the top of your document. ”
Getting Started
One of the main reasons students procrastinate, it turns out, is because they don’t have any idea where to start. You can help with this. First of all, your assignments, especially early in the semester, can provide one (or even multiple) potential starting places. Remember—these should be concrete and tiny! So, instead of “find a source for your essay,” try: “watch this youtube video on search terms which will help you develop your own search strategy.”
You can model this behavior in class by asking students to write down the very first step they’ll take to begin. Recent research shows us that just coming up with a starting point works far better for most students to combat procrastination than going through all of the steps needed to finish an assignment. This exercise is a great starting place for starting places!
You can also help by making sure your assignments are clear. This is one of the most common complaints we get in the Office of First Year Writing, and that tutors hear in the Writing Center. Students really don’t understand what’s being asked of them. You can have a colleague read an assignment for clarity (FYW directors are always happy to do it too!)
Of course, if students don’t understand your assignments, that doesn’t mean you did a bad job writing them—it could just mean there’s a need for further discussion. Unfortunately, many students have a lot of embarrassment when it comes to asking questions. Consider having students ask anonymously—either on padlet or on notecards. And direct students to this exercise, which helps them ask their professors for clarity.
If you are at all able, we strongly suggest one-on-one conferencing with all students. This helps normalize the professor/student relationship, instead of making it a punitive-seeming one. We’ve adapted the ENG1101 model course to provide time for more in-class conferencing. We suggest other classes do the same, if at all possible.
Lessons in Procrastination
There are a number of ways you can talk about procrastination with your students. Whatever you do, we suggest you start an open, honest conversation with students about what procrastination is (and lead them to this site!) We’ve also developed a couple of lessons that you can use in your classes:
A 15-minute exercise you can use to follow up later in the semester.
A mini-unit on procrastination that lasts two class periods (with a brief follow-up on the third day) and can be used in First Year Writing classes or any class in which you want to teach an introduction to reading and genres of research. This unit has been added to the revision of the ENG1101 Model Course for Fall of 2023, but can be modified for 1121, upper-level courses or courses outside the English Department.
OUR RESEARCH
Everything on this site is based on writing by City Tech students and scientific research on procrastination and time management. Click the computer for more info on our research.