I have always been a procrastinator. Despite numerous attempts to fix this bad habit through time blocking, staying ahead of classes or simply being more disciplined, I have always strayed off schedule and ended up finishing assignments at the last minute. Perhaps it is because I thrive off of pressure, especially when I write, because it comes more naturally when I am in a rush. However, as many students at MVHS may have experienced, procrastinating comes with an inherent fear of not completing the assignment in time and ultimately results in a mad scramble to turn in essays to both Schoology and turnitin.com minutes before they are due. 

For me, the biggest problem arises when I try to make my assignments perfect even after procrastinating. While striving for perfection and setting high expectations for myself isn’t a bad thing, submitting something that actually meets my standards would require far more productive days than simply writing the bulk of my essays the day they were due — procrastination left me with an essay that did not meet my standards and an overwhelming amount of stress in the days before it wase due. But being productive in the weeks before big assignments are due is hard for me: The seemingly herculean task waiting to be completed is overwhelming, and it seems far easier to put it off

than try to tackle it, much less make significant progress. Even on rare occasions when I do not procrastinate, I often end up rewriting the entire essay right before it is due, simply because I am not happy with it, even though only changing some parts would be a far more efficient use of my time.

In my experience with piano, I have frequently let my goal of perfection cause me to put off practicing huge pieces. I would get

 overwhelmed in the face of everything I had to fix before the competition, and my fear of not improving the piece to the perfection needed by competition day got in the way of making any progress at all. Then, in the weeks before the competition, fear of not being prepared when the day of the competition came around would override any hesitation I had about learning the piece, and the stress would hit me like a freight train as I desperately tried to prepare for the competition.

Furthermore, in past years, I started cross-country and track and field seasons strong, aspiring to run perfect workouts each day. During the first eight weeks of each season, I’d aim to give my all every single day. But the overtraining would come back to bite me about halfway through the season — when we started racing more frequently, and, unfortunately, when it truly mattered. Like clockwork, I would get injured due to overtraining and burn out halfway through the season, lacking the motivation to continue the seemingly positive upward trend of intensity and mileage, but simultaneously feeling guilty for not giving it my all. 

Fear of running out of time, albeit a powerful motivator, repeatedly brought about an immense amount of anxiety and stress that simply wasn’t worth it. But over and over again, I let my desire for perfection — in school, running and piano — get in the way of achieving anything, even something average, that could eventually save me that anxiety and stress. Ultimately, striving for “perfect” was getting in the way of achieving something “good” each day: In my quest to stop procrastinating, I strove to implement the perfect block of work time each day that involved working on something whenever I had a moment of free time. But the sheer amount of things that I had attempted to do overwhelmed me, causing me to put it off, and causing me to procrastinate all over again.

Eventually, I realized that micromanaging myself was not helping at all. While I’d be motivated to work for a day or two, trying to stay as disciplined as I possibly could just wasn’t sustainable, and I always slipped back into my old habits eventually. Trying to achieve perfection every single day was like building a tower on the fragile foundation of motivation. However, staying consistent and getting in something every day regardless of how motivated I was would eventually stack up to build something far taller and sturdier, whether it was a short run, even just 30 minutes of piano practice or drafting small chunks of an essay.

Consistency didn’t have to mean putting in 110% every day — instead, and more feasibly, I could aim to put in whatever I was capable of without burning out in the long term, which meant taking frequent breaks, limiting time spent studying and effectively using time off. While striving for perfection on test day or during competitions is never a bad thing, perhaps simply shooting for average days while studying for that test or writing that essay could help break down a task into small bits, and allow us to turn in the essay further away from 11:59 P.M.