Elise Moo-Young Professor Presnell English 1103 12 Oct.

2013 Procrastination Proposal Inquiry Question: How does procrastination affect a persons life? Primary Purpose: To explore. I would like to know more about procrastination. Through my research, I hope to find out what procrastination (elaborative description) is, the causes and effects of procrastination, how to fight off the urge to procrastinate, and more. There has not been a single day that has gone by where I have procrastinated which makes me wonder why people do it. Additional Questions to Research: 1.) What exactly is classified as procrastination? 2.) Why do people procrastinate? 3.) Where did procrastination originate from? 4.) What is the relationship between procrastinators and the grades they make in school? 5.) What traits do procrastinators tend to possess? 6.) Can procrastination be helpful to a student? 7.) What are the effects of procrastination? 8.) How can one overcome procrastination? 9.) What is the age that most people start to procrastinate? 10.) Who procrastinates more? Men or women?

Prior Knowledge Ive never been a procrastinator, but Ive seen procrastination take both its best and worst forms. I know that one of the reasons why procrastination occurs is because people often get distracted whether its by their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, phone, the internet, games, television, or texts. However, I also do know that there are some ways to avoid procrastination. One good way to overcome procrastination is to break up the task into mini portions, so that there is no sense of feeling overwhelmed. I have also learned throughout the years that there are different types of procrastination as well as different types of procrastinators. Either way, procrastination has disadvantages, but heres a thought: are there any benefits of procrastinating? For me, getting tasks done in a timely manner makes me feel accomplished. First, I dont have to stress about getting it done at the last minute and second, I can enjoy my free time while it lasts. Is it just me or is there a psychological side behind procrastination? Prior beliefs, assumptions, stereotypes: Many people view procrastinators in a negative way because they wait until the last minute to get their work done. I personally dont think procrastinators will be tolerated in the working world because of their lack of motivation, but who am I to say that procrastinators are set up for failure? A lot of my friends are procrastinators and they still seem to do well on their schoolwork. Maybe its because they work well under pressure. There has to be some advantages to procrastination that I have yet to explore. Working Knowledge: When I first typed Procrastination into Google, 10,200,000 results popped up. I thought that was too many results, so when I decided to narrow my search to Benefits and

advantages of procrastination, 482,000 results became available to me. Even though this was still a lot of results, the numbers of results were smaller than the first search. On the website, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Why-Procrastination-is-Good-for-You162358476.html, I learned that the Romans and Greeks fully embraced the concept of procrastination. As I continued to use Google to research information about procrastination, I came across a website that answered a couple of my questions that I had about the topic. The website, http://sas.calpoly.edu/asc/ssl/procrastination.html lists characteristics of procrastinators, why people procrastinate, and some ways to overcome procrastination. Some characteristics of procrastinators include low self-confidence, frustration, and pressure. Reasons why people procrastinate include wanting to achieve perfection in their work, having difficulty completing their task, and having a fear of being set up for failure. Once I read the reasons why people procrastinate, I read ways to stop procrastination. When I looked up types of procrastinators, the first couple of links gave me a comical list of twelve types of procrastinators: the cleaner, the panicker, the list maker, the napper, the sidetracker, the social sharer, the internet researcher, the snacker, the gamer, the watcher, the delegator, and the perpetuator. Even though I didnt take this list seriously, I did read a list of six styles of procrastination, which was given by Dr. Linda Sapadin, a psychologist and author of a book on procrastination. Her types of procrastinators include the perfectionist, the dreamer, the worrier, the defier, the crisis-maker, and the overdoer. Reading one article led me to type subtopics into Google regarding procrastination. I read that aside from there being types of procrastinators, there are also two types of procrastination: active and passive.

I then started to look up statistics on procrastination and learned that twenty-six percent of the population is chronic procrastinators. That statistic was given in 2007, so I cant imagine what the percent of chronic procrastinators is currently. According to Professors Piers Steel of the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary, 95% of us procrastinate at some point. Although I say that I am not a procrastinator, I probably have done so without even knowing. My procrastination has been done unintentionally. For an example, when I finish a homework assignment, I sometimes wait a little while before I submit it because I try to think if theres anything else I can do to perfect it. I guess my style of procrastination makes me the perfectionist. My different searches on procrastination have showed me that procrastination is not an easy topic to uncover because there are different routes to take on it. I do believe that there is plenty of information to research, so if I do need to narrow it down, I will limit my research to the benefits of procrastination or the correlation of procrastinators and grades. Both of these topics would be fascinating to learn more about because 1.) I am somewhat against procrastination despite me doing it inadvertently and 2.) I want to see if there is a connection between procrastinators and their grades. I am excited to take this inquiry paper to the next level because I want to see what other interesting facts I can find within the next couple of days.