Imagine staying at your computer’s side, drinking caffeine to finish an assignment due tomorrow. You work like this until one a.m. every single day until your eyes threaten to flutter closed and every ounce of your body wants to just collapse. The simple threat of a lower grade is the only incentive egging you on until early morning. By the time you finish and head to bed, you are too tired and stressed to sleep properly. The thought that you could have done the assignment wrong floats its way into your head. Then you remember another assignment due tomorrow night, and begin dreading yet another sleepless night to come. Finally, you fall asleep, but the next morning you wake up at 5:00 a.m., drink three cans of Celsius, zombie throughout the rest of your day and repeat the process again that night. 

The Maggie Walker community is known for procrastinating on a daily basis. Maggie Walker math teacher Amy Maxey estimates that, “at least 95%” of Maggie students procrastinate on a daily basis. Sophomore Hillary Arriaza Todas believes it's “around 60%.” These closely mirror a study by an education company known as Magoosh who found that 86% of high-school students claimed they procrastinated. Several mixed opinions exist about this popular habit. French teacher Madame Paturel reasons that “procrastination is a natural part of being a teenager,” especially at Maggie where students are “doing a lot of clubs…taking on…eight classes compared to [the] seven classes…[at] the average… Chesterfield High school.”

According to Madame Paturel, “the more volume of material you're dealing with, the more likely…procrastination becomes something that happens.” Here at Maggie Walker, the workload can be very intense, and while procrastination may be useful or helpful for certain students, it seems to be a popular consensus that procrastination should be limited. This is because procrastination, in the long term, can take a toll on both a student’s grades and even mental health. When a student procrastinates, they usually do not put as much work into their given homework or project as they would have if they had done it beforehand, which could lead to a decline in their grades. Mrs. Maxey says, “Procrastination prevents students from retaining information. So when they prepare ahead, they have time to not only do the assignment, but to review the assignment and to actually study.” This makes it easier for students to retain the information for final exam season because they actually took time to look over the content that they had learned over the year. To add to this theory, three-time bestselling author and award-winning entrepreneur James Whittaker wrote, “People who don’t procrastinate have more time to learn.” 

Madame Paturel echoes this in a similar fashion, stating that, “allowing yourself to…finish early. [gives] yourself that time to double check for mistakes, which…is more necessary and beneficial for a bigger, longer term, [and] more impactful assignments.” In addition to the physical consequences, procrastination tends to lead to several mental health issues as well. Mrs. Maxey expresses that by the “third quarter [students] become more stressed, and they develop issues with anxiety because they've procrastinated so much.” Hillary agrees with this statement, adding, “The following day [after staying up] is probably the roughest when it comes to procrastination because you're either stressed out that the work that you procrastinated is not good enough…or you're tired because you weren't able to get enough sleep…due to the fact that you procrastinated the night before.” This fact has also been confirmed by several sources such as Harbor Psychiatry and Mental Health, which explains that procrastination can lead to several issues with mental health, including overwhelming anxiety, chronic stress, and fatigue. These things make getting work done even harder, which is one of the reasons why Hillary advised that she “would not recommend procrastination at all.” Procrastination is a bad habit, and once you start it is very hard to stop because assignments will keep piling up.

Madame Paturel brings in a contrasting opinion suggesting that procrastination is “one of those things that, it’s fine every once in a while, but if you let it snowball out of control, just like any…bad habit, it can really damage you long term.” Another source, A Cognitive Connection, warns that “constant procrastination can establish a detrimental pattern of behavior. What starts as an occasional delay can soon transform into a chronic habit, causing significant disruptions to time management strategies and long-term plans.”

Considering all these ideas, it seems that maintaining a low procrastination level is the most optimal way to succeed. While it is more difficult than it may sound, this allows students to achieve more in a long-term viewpoint. While procrastination may seem like the easy way out, do not let the distractions take you out on another tangent. It is best to address this dangerous disrupter before you turn in another assignment late.