MANILA, Philippines – AS A TEACHER for more than 20 years now, I believe that the most common problem of students is not bullying, cheating or drug abuse. Those three are insidious, but procrastination may be the most prevalent. Derived from the Latin roots pro (forward) and crastinus (tomorrow), procrastination has been in the Oxford English Dictionary since the mid-1500s.
Procrastination is so widespread in schools that the novelist Eliyahu Goldratt dubbed it “student syndrome” in his book “Critical Chain.” Students who suffer from this syndrome delay doing a task until right before deadline. They work on a paper just before it is due and, for lack of time, often resort to cutting and pasting passages from other sources, without proper attribution. They cut classes to print out their papers and, when something goes awry, blame the printer, the ink cartridge, even the dog.
Cramming
Cramming is classic procrastination. A student we will call Ana failed a major test. She cried, “But I studied, I really did!” Yes, she did but this is how Ana and her friends tackled four chapters of more than a hundred pages. They listened to the lectures but did not take notes.
Thinking they understood the lessons, they did not open the textbook for a month. At 7 p.m. before the exam, they held a group study at Ana’s house.
“We did not sleep at all,” Ana wailed. “We studied for 12 hours straight, up to 7 a.m. the next morning.” They were shocked that they failed. I was shocked that they expected to ace the test given their poor study habits.
During the test, Ana said she remembered reading the terms the night before, but forgot the links between ideas. Human short-term memory can easily recall seven items, more or less. Tests cover more than seven things.
Ana and her friends tried to force hundreds of ideas into their minds in a short time. They did not succeed. Nobody could.
For long tests, cramming does not work. Unless humans become robots with infinite memory and speedy processing, cramming never will.
What did Ana do to redeem herself? Under my strict guidance, she read her textbook every single day, a few pages at a time. She took notes and asked questions in class. A couple of days before the next exam, she reviewed the main ideas.
She did not have a group study session this time, because “we wasted time chatting about other things.” Instead of being panicky and stressed out, she was calm during the test. Not surprisingly, she got a well-deserved A.
Causes
What makes students procrastinate? Causes vary from anxiety, low self-esteem and depression to poor impulse control, self-defeating mentality, and even a defective prefrontal cortex.
But the most likely reason is most students overestimate their abilities to meet deadlines, and underestimate the time needed for reflection and understanding.
Ideally, students should be able to pace themselves, and not cram. But when I tell my students not to procrastinate, they only smile guiltily. Thus, I have decided to save my students from themselves, as much as possible.
I usually give them a timeline, asking them to submit smaller tasks at regular intervals, instead of one big chunk at once. For a term paper due at the end of a semester, I ask them to submit an outline by the end of June, a review of literature by July, a first draft by August, a second draft by September, and the final copy by October. I make suggestions and revisions, and expect each succeeding submission to be better than the last.
Some students are perfectionists. They will not continue a task unless they feel that everything is going fine (an impossibility in the academe and, I daresay, in the real world).
I once had a student who could not write beyond the first paragraph. He agonized over every single word and punctuation mark, so much so he could not write anything at all because “nothing was good enough.” I counseled him to relax, “just do it!” and to revise his work later.
Help
As a new school year begins, the best resolution students can make is to beat procrastination, once and for all.
Here are some tips:
Make a deal with yourself to work on a task for 15-20 minutes. Once you get started, momentum kicks in and you will usually continue the work.
Minimize distractions. Surveys by Tim Pychyl, director of the Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Canada, show that the worst procrastinators are those distracted by e-mail, social networking, computer games. Shut them all off, he says. You can check them after you have finished your work.
Break down huge tasks into smaller pieces. Ana did well on the test by reading the book slowly, in chunks, steadily, every day, instead of trying to finish everything in one night.
Prioritize. Most students concentrate on subjects they like, and put off doing the homework they hate. This is the exact opposite of what achievers do. Good students focus their energies and time on difficult assignments first and, afterwards, devote their remaining resources to easier tasks. Since the latter is naturally pleasurable, students will not delay doing them.
Seek advice from teachers on difficult tasks. A student we will call Pedro did not submit any requirement. He asked me later on for “extra work” to raise his final grade. He said he “did not know how to do the homework.”
Unfortunately, he never consulted at all during the semester, so I had to tell him that, if he could not do regular assignments, there was no way he could understand the extra work, as it would be a lot more complex.
Contrast Pedro’s behavior with his classmate Pepe’s. Although Pepe also found the requirements challenging, he consulted me several times. He submitted an excellent project.
To students, teachers, parents and other readers, e-mail me how you overcame procrastination, or helped others do so. I will feature the most helpful suggestions in a future column.
Have a great school year!
E-mail the author at blessbook@yahoo.com.

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By: Queena N. Lee-Chua
@inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer
06:05 PM June 12th, 2011

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http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/14305/rx-for-procrastination
Date accessed: November 24, 2015

http://www.philstar.com/cebu-lifestyle/2014/08/13/1357092/study-habits-surviving-college date accessed: November 24, 2015
CEBU, Philippines - Entering college takes a lot of adapting to the academic environment and avoiding distractions.
The school environment in college is quite different. There are more distractions compared to high school.
The greatest challenge for a college student is how to build habits - study habits especially - in order to be able to resist the many temptations that pester a young student's life. While fun is nice to have, it shall not be allowed to compromise one's academic performance.
The student's average retention rate of a class lesson is lowest during lecture and highest when he tries to teach it to others. When the student engages himself further in the topic, his retention of it increases proportionately. When the student applies his learning by explaining the topic to others or by actually putting it to practice in his daily life, he is most likely to keep the knowledge for good. The following study tips are sure to help ensure academic survival in college:
Freeman ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1. Have a list of things to do. It must be an actual list, not simply a mental note. Write down everything that needs to be done, even things you need to remember. List down class assignments and other school-related matters. Remember to indicate deadlines or schedules of exams. You don't have to strain your mind remembering things that can simply be written down in a notebook. 2. Observe the same study schedule every day. The point here is to establish a routine. Identify your most ideal time to study, considering factors like freshness of topics, possible distractions, your mental energy level etc. Once you have identified your ideal study time, start conditioning your mind for study a few minutes before you actually begin. 3. Keep your study time within comfortable limits. Studying too much in one sitting can result in either information overload or mental fatigue, in which case your efforts will just be wasted. The brain may have the capacity to take in great amounts of information, but it can absorb only enough at a time. Especially when coupled with stress, retention of too much information input would be less. 4. Take a break during long study hours. Taking a break when studying for long hours helps in the retention of the studied materials. The break, however, is meant to relax the mind a bit, and shall not be spent in other engaging activities like accessing Facebook or other social media platforms; in fact, such activities must be avoided completely when studying as it veer away your attention. The break is only to allow you to go to the comfort room, or grab some light food to munch, or to refresh your eyes. It is also okay to contact a classmate for help, if necessary. 5. Study difficult lessons first.
The idea is to tackle the difficult lessons while your mind is still fresh and has the energy to figure out complicated concepts. And, once you are through with the difficult tasks, the easy ones seem a lot easier and no longer require much time to study. 6. Scan your class notes before delving into the assignments. Reviewing your notes can help get you in the right mindset and hasten the process of doing your assignment. Some students go right into their assignments without reviewing their notes, and often have to refer back to their notes as they hit a snag. To avoid wasting time in the process, it's better to review your notes first. 7. Be open to ask for help. No one student has the monopoly of understanding class lessons or class assignments. A classmate may have understood the topic far better than you do; so when having a difficult time with a lesson or assignment, don't hesitate to ask for his help. Or, if not, see your teacher or go to the library.(FREEMAN)

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