The Procrastination Game

With another round of midterms just around the corner, many students may find themselves in the same, stressful situation every year. Frantically cramming seemingly pointless information the night before the exam, it’s no secret procrastinators will have the most anxious, unprepared experience during finals week.

However, being an avid procrastinator myself, this is not an editorial on study tips or reasons to avoid putting responsibilities off until the last minute. It is, instead, my attempt to explain the way our brains work.

What many non-procrastinators do not understand is that we procrastinators are aware of all of the negatives of what we do. We know that our grades would, most likely, average five to seven percent higher if we planned our week evenly and got work done as soon as possible.

It’s not like everyone who consistently procrastinates is exhilarated and enlightened upon reading the same rewritten list of “useful” study tips every fall. Teachers and counselors who condemn procrastination, although rightfully so, don’t seem to fully understand it.

The way I see it, procrastination is a game, The Procrastination Game, and it’s very addicting. The whole idea behind procrastination is to put off responsibilities to do what feels good in the moment: Playing video games instead of studying, watching TV as your homework sits blank on the table.

This often results in late night cramming or early morning scribbling on homework. Obviously, these things are not enjoyable, and are often very stressful. However, when we still manage to get A’s on homeworks or squeak out B’s on tests, procrastinating doesn’t seem all that bad.

Then, in our brains, a line is created. This is The Procrastination Game. How far can we push that line and still retain an A or B? Sometime’s we feel we may have pushed it way too far, to the point of no return. But, if we see that we still managed a higher grade than we thought, we won that round of the game. Winning The Procrastination Game may be the most addicting, legal thing about high school. Because, when you win, you have done what felt good in the moment, and also gotten all of your responsibilities done, despite how unhealthy the path there may have been.

Procrastinators are the daredevils of high school, always looking for ways to push the limits of what is possible, and crazy enough not to give up when we fail because of it.