April 21, 2022
from Mark Segal, Upper School Director
Over the course of the past year, the other two division directors and I have committed to writing an article for the Panther Post every other week. Even though I enjoy writing as a way to express my thoughts and know there is so much to share with families of upper school students, I often find myself waiting until the last moment to write my bi-weekly article. It would be easy to come up with valid and justifiable excuses (spending time with students, responding to emails and voicemails, meetings, etc.), but in reality it is pure and simple procrastination – the act of delaying or postponing something. Now in my twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth year of working with adolescents, I understand that the art of procrastination is real and that it impacts most of us in some way. We may avoid something that is challenging, find alternative things to do, or fear not doing the task “well enough.”
Psychologist and author Alice Boyes published a study in The Harvard Business Review that shared some findings and assumptions of procrastination, and made suggestions to counteract them. The first assumption is that those who procrastinate are undisciplined and do not have the self-control to do what is necessary. Although there may be some truth to procrastinators being headstrong and set in their ways, Boyes suggests that habits and systems be established by setting up a consistent schedule for completing the assigned work or task. The author also found that, “We tend to avoid tasks that stir up negative emotions.” Additionally, the belief is that when experiencing feelings of uncertainty or anxiousness negative emotions are brought to the surface and we are more apt to procrastinate. In this case, the suggestion is to disentangle our emotions from the task, and find a way to make it fun and reward yourself when it’s done. Lastly, the HBR article shares that we often find ourselves stuck in a pattern of unhelpful thoughts that occupies all we think of. The researcher suggests to break this cycle that we, initially, limit ourselves to short work periods and slowly built upon them, like training for a marathon.