Overcoming procrastination during school years

by College Counsellor, Ms Tracey Coombes

Procrastination is a normal part of human behaviour and is highly common among students facing their home and school life. While it can be frustrating, understanding why it is happening can be important step in identifying strategies that can be effective in conquering procrastination during a student’s school years.

St Laurence’s College Counsellor Tracey Coombes explains that “people procrastinate due to the holding of unhelpful rules or assumptions about themselves and how the world works. At the heart of procrastination is a feeling or anticipation of discomfort about doing the task (e.g. frustration, boredom, anxiety, fear, embarrassment, lethargy etc) which then becomes a strategy to avoid the discomfort.” 

The fear of failure, disapproval, uncertainty, low self-confidence, pleasure seeking, oppositional mindset and low energy are all feelings that our students have felt in one way or another. 

But how do we help our boys overcome these assumptions or mindsets? It's not always easy to shift rules and assumptions underlying procrastination, especially   if they have been there a long time, and therefore they may require more intensive work.

One strategy in dealing with procrastination is learning to tolerate the distress and discomfort, even for a small amount of time. Our emotions often act like waves, rising and gaining height at certain points, then tapering off and dropping back. Like a wave the discomfort is temporary, it doesn't go on forever and will slowly subside. 

There are also some practical ways to help stop procrastination; to-do lists, goals (short, medium and long term), prioritising tasks, breaking down tasks and obstacles and estimating the time it will take to achieve each individual task. 

When approaching study, homework or assignments, there are some great strategies that can be put in place to make things easier. 

• Approach your worst task first: all other tasks will seem easy in comparison.
• Prime time and place: establish when and where you work best during the day and organise your study around this.
• Visualise: imagine the task in your mind being done successfully and use the momentum to get going in real life.
• Mindfulness: use mindfulness to bring gentle awareness to what you are doing in the present moment. Do this by taking three to five minutes to notice your breath and any sensations inside or outside your body, notice the sounds around you, letting your thoughts come and go. Once you feel calm, return to the task.
• Plan Rewards: reward yourself after achieving something you planned to do. The more you reward yourself for small achievements, the less you will feel like you've been missing out or being deprived, hence you will procrastinate less.

Schooling years are an incredibly pivotal time and can bring up issues like stress, anger, bullying, family relationships, LGBTQI+, mental health issues such as depression and anxiety, peer relationships, self-harm, substance misuse, suicidal ideation and transitioning into different year levels. We’re proud to have an experienced Counselling team at the College to support students in overcoming these social and emotional barriers, improve personal and learning growth so that academic and co-curricular success can be achieved.