Research advances understanding of procrastination

Inability to focus on tasks, confidence in pulling it off at the last minute are key factors -- researchers

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When Brianne Williams returns to her dorm room after four hours of class at NSCAD, she begins her homework right away.

"I like to get my work done right after each class, because if I wait, it all becomes one big ball of mush," she says. "I need to break it up and do it step by step."

This is exactly the kind of thinking behind a new study done in Germany. Psychologists have shown that the way a person mentally approaches a task can help determine how quickly he or she completes it.

The study looked at two ways a person can approach a task. Concrete thinking is breaking a task down into smaller parts so that it's more manageable. Abstract thinking is thinking about the task as a whole.

Sean McCrea, head of the department of psychology at the University of Konstanz, led the research. He and his team report that abstract thinking puts mental distance between the person and the goal, making it seem hard to reach.

On the other hand, concrete thinking focuses more on doing the task at hand.

McCrea also says research in procrastination has mainly focused on the effects of personality, instead of ways of thinking.

But a counsellor at Dalhousie University says the concept of thinking states isn't new to procrastination research.

"One of the mechanisms of change in people is changing the way people think," says Victor Day. He's done his own research in students and he says that there's more than one explanation for procrastination.

Some people have additional problems that distract them from the task at hand that aren't abstract thinking, he says. He has devised his own reasons as to why students procrastinate.

One of these reasons could explain Samantha Choy's procrastination.

Last-minute club members are often confident

"I'm very social, so it's hard to do individual work when I'm by myself," Choy admits. "When anyone is around, I totally stop anything that I'm doing...and do it when I absolutely have to, which is if it's due at midnight, I'll do it at 11:55."

Choy is in her first year at Dalhousie University. She's taking a bachelor of arts with a focus in nursing. Although Choy procrastinates when it comes to exams, papers and assignments, she says she still does well. She teaches herself everything she's supposed to know a few days before the exam.

"It's like, the worst thing you could possibly do," she says. "But that is what I do."

Day says this is the most common type of procrastination.

"It's related to the confidence that ‘I can do it well enough later. I socialize a lot, and I do my work in a flurry towards the end'."

This behavior is rewarded because the students may see themselves as doing a good job at the last minute.

But for students who go to NSCAD, doing a good job at the last minute isn't possible, according to Williams. Her assignments include five- to 10-hour drawings for each class, which can add up to at least 25 hours a week in homework. Throw in four-hour classes, meal times and 30 winks, and Williams doesn't have a lot of free time.

"I just go after class and get it over with, and get it done," she says. "It just eats me inside if I don't. I keep sitting up at night, thinking about it."

To her, starting an assignment two days before it's due is procrastinating. Starting hours before the deadline, like Choy, is "a shock to my system."

Williams uses the concrete thinking process to avoid procrastinating on her assignments. She breaks things down in her head into smaller, easier to manage assignments. Since most of her assignments are drawings, she likes to finish them in one sitting.

Day says it's less intimidating for students when a large assignment is broken into smaller parts.

Choy procrastinates on these types of assignments too.

"They'll say I have to have a rough copy by a certain day, but it's not really set in stone, so I don't have to hand it in. It's just so I have time to edit it before handing in the final draft," she explains. "So I do my rough copy the day of, and edit it before I go to class."

She says she will probably continue to procrastinate, because she has her friends to explain assignments that she doesn't understand. She says sometimes she and Williams work in the same room, and her presence helps her to get work done.

Of all the factors Day studied in procrastination, he says being a social butterfly isn't related to lower marks.

"What that means is that the confidence is often true," he says. "So where does the confidence come from? Typically from past experience. I think I'm good at pulling it off at the last minute, because typically I have been. And the past predicts the future better than anything."

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