If you ask many students, they will tell you that school is nothing more than
a stress factory. A manufacturing plant dedicated to crowding their lives with
unnecessary work. Should this really be the appropriate view though? School is
supposed to help and encourage students lives, not shadow over them. Then why
do so many people view school related assignments and projects as a negative
thing if it is what gets us tuned in with the real world. Its their attitude
towards the work, and more broadly, to life that makes them like this. I'll
When someone procrastinates, they may say "I'll do it later," but most often
never end up doing it. But what are they actually doing, evident by this
behavior, and more importantly why? When they are putting work off, they are
making room for things they like doing or things that make them feel good, which
I will refer to as "rewards." These "rewards" are things that give fun and/or
exciting signals to the brain (like games, food, social interaction,
money-spending, etc.), rather than the dull redundancy of an assignment they
would rather not do. But then when they get their grades and the grades are
bad, they are greatly discontented and stressed. If their goal was to get good
grades, then why did they put off the work for?
The reason is found in their rationale for doing the boring work. They do it
in a hurry at the last minute with the negative consequence in mind and that
competing the assignment will prohibit that. But working away from a negative
goal is a lot less efficient because putting anything acceptable down will be
done to finish it before the deadline. Even if its a "C" paper, your motivation
is finishing it before the deadline to avoid something negative, not how good it
can be. A good "A" paper can't be rushed last minute. This prize is achieved
by putting time and effort in, but to be able to stick to a mind-numbingly
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