Nearly 20 members of SMU students and faculty with lunches in hand, filled room 205 of the Memorial Health Center. They sat side by side at Wednesday’s Brown Bag, a procrastination workshop hosted by Jaya Matthew.
Matthew, who is currently working on her doctorate, is an intern with SMU’s Counseling and Psychiatric Services.
“I cannot promise a cure, but we can begin to identify what procrastination is and outline tips and tools to help you battle procrastination,” Matthew said.
Stress and late nights are settling in on campus as students and faculty have begun to prepare themselves for final exams next week, but some students on the Hilltop have already taken their finals. Questions among the audience indicated that many students were plagued by final papers and setting a side time for studying. Sophomore Elisa Gallegos attended the workshop because she is just tired of waiting until the last minute.
Matthew presented the differences between procrastination and time management–procrastination involves emotional blocks, whereas time management involves scheduling blocks. She said that about 90 percent of all people procrastinate, and “avoidance is the primary indicator of procrastination that can take on some many different forms in your life.”
Junior Claudia Hernandez said procrastination has been a struggle for her since high school.
“I’m always searching for ways to improve, but I’ve gotten better with time management in college,” Hernandez said. Matthew presented the ‘15 minute rule’ as a way for students to use their time management skills, breaking up a task by taking 15 minutes out of the day to get started on it so there will be less to do when they return to it.
“I love the ‘15 minute rule’ because it’s a general tip to get me started on a project so that I’m not overwhelmed by the time the due date rolls around,” Hernandez said.
Matthew proposed a wide array of tips for procrastinators, such as learning to make reasonable goals, understanding who you are hurting by waiting and not making the project bigger than it is. Matthew spoke of the irrational rationalizations many people use when avoiding a task.
“‘I’m not in the mood right now’ is a good one,” she said. “I hear some laughter. Sound familiar?”
She told the group to ask themselves if they will ever really be in the mood to tackle a large project, and whether the burden was worth carrying around all month or semester.
Matthew’s driving point was to reflect on the feeling of accomplishment and relief one feels when completing a task, and not on the negativity of having to complete it.
“I learned that I can overcome it, but it won’t be like tomorrow,” Gallegos said. “It’s going to take practice.”
