By Grace Smith | Broadcast Reporter
Procrastination is something every college student experiences daily. The late nights of cramming and chugging RedBull just to keep your eyes open is all too familiar.
I can admit that I experienced these nights time and time again until I finally got tired of it. When I find myself procrastinating, I produce about half of the quality of work I could do if I hadn’t procrastinated in the first place.
I procrastinated my whole way through high school. I would wait till the last minute to do just about everything. So, I decided that I was going to stop when I reached college.
I was driving back to Baylor after a long and enjoyable Christmas break. It was the start of a new semester. For the first half of the car ride, I was trying to convince myself that I was going to ditch procrastination for good, as hard as it may be. I remembered seeing this ad on Instagram for this book called “5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage.” I thought it was interesting, so I downloaded the book to listen to the rest of my drive back to Baylor. This book indeed transformed my life.
The author Mel Robbins gives advice straight and simple. The rule is, if you have an instinct to act on a goal, you have to physically act on it within five seconds or else your brain will kill it. If there is something you don’t want to do, but you know you should, you should count down from five then move toward that action.
You must take action on your instinct to change, and if you don’t then you will always stay the same. Counting down will limit the distractions and worries going on in your head.
I’ll be honest, at first I thought that this would never work with me, but I was so very wrong.
First, I started using the rule to just get out of bed in the mornings, and I quickly started to find myself with more time in the mornings and was rarely late for anything. When I started using the rule to start my homework or what ever it was that I needed to get done, I found myself with more free time than I ever had. I also realized that the work I was doing was better quality and I was less stressed altogether.
Applying this rule to everything in my life made a huge difference. I was able to get so much more out of each day. I had more time to do everything and was hardly ever in a rush.
College is stressful — a lot of responsibilities are being thrown at you left and right. With the “5 Second Rule,” I found that I was able to overcome my procrastination and get everything I needed done and more. I encourage everyone to try out the “5 Second Rule.”
I promise you, your life will change, just like mine did. Thank you, Mel Robbins, and thank you, “5 Second Rule.”
