At the beginning of June many students realise that exam week is right around the corner. The printer is buzzing with buttloads of documents that need to be printed off and the course folders are slowly becoming fuller and fuller. But sometimes it seems that the more work you have to master, the more you put it off. Highly common among students, this phenomenon is termed procrastination. Whereas continuous procrastination might result in a psychological disorder, I am only going to outline the most common procrastination strategies that all students are familiar with.
Let the procrastination begin. It is a well-known situation: due to constant confusion, losing your planner or spending your time daydreaming, you are once again left to cram tons of knowledge into your head over only three days. This is exactly when everything around you suddenly becomes more and more interesting than your studies. Many students start off with simple forms of procrastination, such as cleaning their rooms and re-arranging their CD collections. When these necessary deeds are done, the alarm clock is set at 6 am and the snooze button enters the stage. The time when you actually get up is simply delayed by “snoozing” about ten times. If this kind of stuff hasn’t already caused you to panic and to really study, more advanced procrastination measures have to be considered.
A dangerous threat to the progress of our studies has only recently entered our rooms: Facebook. Many students leave their laptops on while studying, because they might have to check some words in an online dictionary – running to the bookshelf would just be a waste of time. What they haven’t thought about is that they will start checking Facebook for news from their friends obsessively. Exam week is indeed the time when the most posts seem to crop up from fellow students. Another demonic threat to studies is YouTube. You start checking it for the latest videos from your favourite bands, funny commercials and you might even type in procrastination, curious about what the search results will be. Other dangers within our rooms are the television and – you won't believe it – our course folders. You suddenly start appreciating the “educational” afternoon television on RTL that gives you an insight into the lives of Berlin’s finest and you might even start streaming American talk shows like Jerry Springer in order to further your education. Personally, I often consider pursuing a career as a professional cartoonist because I’m so fascinated by the Groening-like drawings I created during one of the sessions in the course of the semester.
© great.craic, WS 2010/2011
At this point you realise that studying inside will get you nowhere so you decide to go outside to get some fresh air in order to speed up your brain cells. The minute you step out on the balcony, you discover a sudden fascination for everyday natural spectacles. You are bewildered by the leaves dancing in the wind and the pretty butterflies circling around your head. Many students have reported entering into a trance-like state where they realise how beautiful it is to watch the birds fly by. Also, they discover the numerous talents of their pets and post lots of pictures on Facebook. This is where my idea of a double procrastination comes in: the fascination of nature and the influence of social networking combined to bring procrastination to a whole new level. In case, the procrastinator is a smoker, the nicotine consumption redoubles and smokers can easily be detected in exam week due to the cough they’re accompanied by.
As hilarious as it might sound and as hilarious as it often is, the results of procrastination are usually not very amusing. Procrastination normally results in late-night studies, permanent stress, and finally, sheer panic. The reason most students show an undeniable resemblance to corpses during exam week is procrastination. If we didn’t procrastinate, we would all have better grades. At the beginning of every semester you hear many students say: “This term, it’s all going to be different!” They organise their course material and make plans to start studying … tomorrow.
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