By Noah Torr | Broadcast Reporter
I’m going to tell you something that you’ve been told is wrong your whole life. It’s something that is frowned upon and something that college forces you to break. But I’m here to tell you what everyone else won’t: the positives about being a procrastinator.
That’s right. There are positives to being a procrastinator, and sometimes it’s actually beneficial for you to not always be on top of everything.
For example, as I’m typing this, I am past my deadline that my editor set for me. Am I worried? A little, but this is making me type faster and produce the best content I can in a short amount of time.
Personally, I thrive on deadlines, and if you’re anything like me, your best work actually comes when you’re against the clock. You’re forced to sit down and focus. The distractions seem to disappear when your midterm is in the next hour, and you haven’t studied. That last second cram can be the difference between an 80 and an 81.
You don’t believe me? I understand, but let me throw something else your way.
If you’re a busy person, which is all of us in college and beyond, your life is full of stress. Classes, work, social life and all the other miscellaneous things that control you. If you plan everything out and try to get everything done days in advance, you’re going to stress yourself out even more because you’ll see a full plate ahead. But, if you spread some things out and push some things to the last minute, not only are you going to produce some of your best work, but you’re going to have less stress at the beginning of your week. Sure, you’ll be super stressed out when you finally have to address your deadline, but that’s a problem for tomorrow.
Call me irresponsible, reckless, negligent, impulsive, even downright dumb, but I consider myself to be responsible, diligent, a master planner and a genius.
You say to-may-to I say to-mah-to.
I will add this counterpoint: Procrastinating does have its downfalls. I am still missing my deadline for this piece, I have 20 math problems, a test on Wednesday that I have yet to study for and will probably be up till 1 a.m. But, that is a sacrifice I am willing to make because, instead of sitting down and forcing myself to do this earlier, I played ping-pong with friends. So who is the real winner here?
So when your roommates ask you if you want to go to dinner with them, as the great Tom Haverford from Parks and Recreation said, “Treat. Yo. Self.”
It’s ok to go have fun and not stress yourself out because there’s always tomorrow. And when you finally have to sit down and finish your homework, you will be glad you pushed it off because you won’t have any more excuses to not get it done.
