When it’s time to study do you find yourself binge-watching entire seasons of Netflix? Scrolling TikTok for hours? Perhaps your home is unusually spotless? Or are you convinced that you perform well under pressure and purposefully wait till the last minute to get to your studies?
You are not alone. Procrastination is extremely common among university students and there is even a category called academic procrastination, where students “…voluntarily delay an intended course of study-related action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay”.[1]
The connection between your thoughts, feelings and behaviour is central to understanding procrastination. Learning to reduce problematic procrastination to challenge unhelpful thoughts (“I work better under pressure”), and learning to cope with challenging feelings such as anxiety or boredom, is crucial to reducing problematic procrastination. Learning to take a balanced, compassionate attitude toward yourself can interrupt the cycle of procrastination.
It is human to avoid more painful or challenging tasks in the pursuit of more pleasurable or easier activities, but there are levels at which it becomes an issue. If procrastination is impacting your studies, it is important for you to learn to manage it.
Lunchtime Life Skills: Managing procrastination
What if there is more to procrastination than you think?
Join Curtin’s Psychological and Counselling services team for this two-part webinar that takes a deep dive into helping you develop a more sophisticated understanding of what procrastination is and how it works. You will also learn how to reinforce helpful thoughts and understand practical behavioural strategies to help you get started and keep working.
Attend other Lunchtime Life Skills events
Tune into the Lunchtime Life Skills webinar series throughout the semester to learn practical skills and strategies to manage common challenges faced by university students.
You can also visit Curtin’s Counselling & Wellbeing webpage to learn more about Curtin’s free counselling services, other group programs and medical services for all students.
References
[1] Steel, P., & Klingsieck, K. B. (2016). Academic Procrastination: Psychological Antecedents Revisited. Australian Psychologist, 51, 36-46
