roughdraft
The Enemy of Success
Someone once said procrastination is the enemy of success. That someone was me.
Procrastination can be defined as delaying a task as much as possible until the
deadline arrives, if the deadline never arrives. The task will inevitably be delayed
forever, and the process of long term procrastination begins. The biggest issue that
derives from procrastination is the consequences, the consequences may include,
never achieving your dreams, stress, bad grades, and an overall bad life. Preventing
procrastination can be a very difficult task if one does not have the correct
mindset, using self control to focus on the task at hand, and being able to finish
it on time.
Procrastination, the action of delaying or postponing something. I recently watched
a Ted Talk by Tim Urban in which he discusses the way a procrastinators brain works.
In every person’s brain there is a rational decision maker, however, in a
procrastinator's brain there is an Instant Gratification Monkey. Simply explained,
the gratification monkey completely disregards anything the rational decision maker
wants to do. In this situation, everything seems fine right? Wrong! The problem with
the gratification monkey is that it never thinks about anything else other than
present and having fun. The gratification monkey has also never learned from his
past experiences, which almost always end incredibly badly. The monkey is the
literal definition of “living in the moment” which is usually a positive and rare
characteristic to find. The monkey only worries about achieving maximum fun without
any concern of what is to happen later on. Because of the monkey, the procrastinator
finds himself in a very terrible predicament. The procrastinator begins to perform
the same actions over and over again, endlessly watching youtube videos, binge
watching movies on netflix, or even constantly refreshing social media to see if
something new may entertain him or her. After this phase, a new member appears in
the brain, the only member that is able to successfully scare off the gratification
monkey. Tim Urban presents this member as “The Panic Monster”, the panic monster
only appears at the most critical of times. When a deadline arises or the task needs
to be finished at a certain point, the panic monster arrives. The issue is that the
panic monster is only able to scare off some procrastinators, these are the lucky
ones. Some procrastinators do not even respond to the panic monster and decide it is
a better option for them to run up the tree with the monkey. Examples of the
disasters the monkey causes include poor time management, lack of concentration as
well as fear and anxiety.
In order to prevent procrastination, a correct mindset is necessary to set
priorities and control yourself from distractions. The first step towards not
procrastinating is splitting apart the task at hand into smaller parts, for example
if the task at hand is to write an easy split the writing of the essay into steps.
Step 1, begin to brainstorm ideas. Step 2, begin writing an gain inspiration from
credible sources. Step 3, do not write for more than 55 minutes a day without taking
a five minute break. Step 4, reward yourself with a treat after completing each part
of the task. Always make sure you remove or minimize noise or distraction (ie cell
phones, email notifications, computer etc). Ensure that the environment you are
working in is neat and organized and contains all necessary tools and equipment for
the task to be completed.
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There are many reasons as to why we procrastinate, one of these reasons could be a
lack of resources. The task at hand keeps being put off until a later date possibly
because the person may not have enough money or tools needed to finish it by the
proper deadline. Procrastination also occurs due to things like bills, payments and
the lack of money in order to pay these bills/payments. Many procrastinators also
procrastinate because they may have more important things to finish and bigger
issues to solve. No procrastinator intentionally puts off something, they put it off
because there are many distractions in their path such as social media, music,
electronics, overeating due to lack of things to do. Other instances of
procrastination include a student putting of an important presentation if he or she
has an important exam to prepare for. A parent procrastinates due to not being able
to fix apart of the house, that money is spent either paying the mortgage or rent or
feeding the children. Parents may also come across justified procrastination, which
is when a very important decision made and the choice is not easy one. In
conclusion, procrastination is a part of life. It has many perks and consequences
that affect the way people finish tasks and the way they live their life. One’s
success can depend on whether or not they procrastinate, projects at home can be
procrastinated but I believe that is it never good to procrastinate through
work-related obligations and responsibilities.
Chuck Palahniuk, the writer of one of the most famous novels “Fight Club” believes
that people enjoy procrastinating in their lives because nobody genuinely wants
their problems solved, they just want to escape from reality and the messes they
have creative. The issue is if everyone had no problems they would not have anything
left to worry about. Chuck thinks that that people subconsciously put off things
because they are desperate for a distraction to distract themselves from their final
destination, their own death. In the movie “fight club” the main character is an
automobile recall specialist who loathes his job and possessions, he has also
developed severe insomnia. To distract himself from his treacherous job and terrible
insomnia the main character he attends support groups for people with testicular
cancer, which helps his insomnia. This represents a different method of
procrastination, dealing with a disease that gives you trouble sleeping. The main
character meets a soap salesman called Tyler Durden, the flight lands and the main
character returns to his house which has been destroyed by an explosion. He decides
to call Tyler, they then meet at a bar and begin a fistfight because Tyler tells the
main character to hit him. The main character has to temporarily live with Tyler
because his apartment has exploded, the main character has also quit his job. The
main character and Tyler create a “fight club” in the basement of the bar. This is
also another way for the main character to procrastinate and distract himself from
the fact that he is now broke and is his living conditions are horrible. A ton of
other men also join “fight club”, who also attend to distract themselves from their
dead end job and how bad their lives are. This movie is a great example of how life
is about distracting yourself from your problems in order to continue normally
living your life.
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Overall, procrastination is a very dangerous thing to deal with and can create
numerous issues in life like stress, failure, getting fired, and not getting into
the university you want, etc. There are many strategies that can be used to combat
procrastination which are outlined in this essay. Procrastination is most prominent
in teenagers because of puberty. Teenagers are distracted due to things like social
media, relationships and these issues prevent teens from achieving good grades in
school. Teenagers can prevent this by staying persistent and separating enough time
for fun activities and productivity.
Experts have discovered that procrastination is a set of behaviours which are
generated by your decision making process, developed over time. I have given many
examples of the outcomes of these decisions and their consequences, as well as ways
you can combat them. Procrastination is what drives people from their work, study
and even determination. Focus is something that is needed throughout people’s
everyday lives, even though it is tempting to delay what needs to be finished, no
excuse should ever be worth it. Procrastination consumes time, but do we have enough
time in our own lives to put off our plans, dreams, and potential success. I think
not. Is it not better to waste our time to know ourselves better and to understand
what causes the procrastination, so we can overcome the procrastination if it
becomes a problem for us?
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