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June 26, 2018

Instructor Ronald Bohannon
Professor Alexander Izrailevsky
ENGL-1010-420-Su18
4600 S Redwood Rd
Salt Lake Community College
Salt Lake City, Ut 84123

Dear Instructor Bohannon and Professor Izrailevsky,

I am writing my paper on the philosophy and idea of procrastination. I had been working
on this paper for my philosophy class all throughout the summer semester for my final
assignment. When I was typing this paper out, I noticed it would be perfect for my final
assignment in english as well so I am using this paper for my final in both classes. I had
done several assignments during english that helped me improve the overall aspect,
purpose of this paper, and how I get my ideas and information across towards the
reader.

Sincerely,

Michael Hopkins
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Michael Hopkins
July 07, 2018
Philosophy SLCC
English 1010-420 SLCC

I Have Not Thought of a Title Yet, I’ll Get Back to You

After reading my title, most would assume that I put the least amount of effort

possible into this paper based on their assumption that I didn’t write a title. This

assumption would be wrong due to the fact that, I came up with this title to intrigue the

reader on my topic and used it as a hook. I am writing my philosophy paper on the idea

of procrastination. Procrastination is the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be

accomplished. It is often associated as putting off a certain task to a later time. I studied

why people use procrastination, the types of procrastinators, how you can overcome the

tempting allure of procrastination, basic facts of procrastination, and if it is an overall

positive idea to do. I also am going to be talking about how missing class can be

negative and not only your grade, but your future as well.

Most people use procrastination in many different forms throughout their life. In

midst of my research for finding out why people should use procrastination, I found an

article from Develop Good Habits, that found several different causes of why we

struggle to get things done as humans in today’s society. One of their main reasons that

this is difficult to overcome is because everybody has a different reason for doing it.

Reason one that causes procrastination to some people is perfection. The fear of

making a mistake can cause people to devote more time towards an activity and cause

other tasks to be pushed by for another day. Reason two is the fear of the unknown.

People are often afraid to act because it might reveal news that you don’t want to hear
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and so you try to ignore. Reason three is the most basic and commonly used excuse of

“I’ll do it later”. This is often used because you believe you will be able to give it a better

effort and put off for a later time and creates a strong false reality of how you will feel

later versus how you feel currently. Reason four is working on small tasks because

they’re easier to complete. They make you feel and look busy and trick your brain into

thinking you are getting a lot of work done when really you are just creatively

procrastinating a bigger task that will take a longer period of time. Reason five is you

experience a lack of motivation at a certain time. A study showed that when people

lacked motivation when they find little value in the project where as if they see how their

work connects to their interest and benefits their future goals directly, they are more

likely to be motivated. Reason six is you are unclear about how to get started. When

you don’t know your first step in a project, you might put it off hoping it will come to you

at a later time, or until you have a chance to devote more energy to try to understand

the project. Reason seven is you often get distracted in today’s world due to technology,

other people, and side tasks. Smartphones are often blamed for distracted because

they contain so much information and news that people want to know before anyone

else. Reason eight is you know the task will require effort and hard work. Working on

large projects is difficult due to how much effort needs to be put in to finish the

assignment. This makes people give up something they would rather do instead and

that causes a loss of motivation.

I’ve discovered that there all procrastinators can be categorized into three

different categories. The first is the productive procrastination. You put off some

responsibilities for other thing that need to be taken care of. You prioritize something
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more than something else that might be more important. This type of procrastinator

feels less guilt about pushing back projects because you are accomplishing other

activites and that that you would have to do later on at some point. The second type of

procrastinator is the sleepy procrastinator. You often feel that sleeping is a better use of

time in the moment. You often believe that you will be more motivated and energized to

complete your task after you wake up, but this is highly unlikely. The third type is the

social media procrastinator. You devote so much attention and effort into social media

that you distract yourself from being productive on the task at hand. You prioritize the

allure of social media more than anything else at the time and try to ignore your

surroundings outside your phone.

There are several different ways to overcome each of these different types of

procrastinations in the future. The productive procrastinator doesn’t believe they are

procrastinating at all, which could create a problem. The solution is to write out

everything you need to finish and cross them off as you finish each task. This will allow

you to receive the feeling of being productive while being able to visually see how much

you need to get done as well. The sleepy procrastinator uses sleep as relief and an

escape from their current project. The solution to this form of procrastination is to limit

your naps. It doesn't get much simpler than that. Naps are perfectly fine, when they

improve your personal performance on the task at hand, whereas napping a significant

period of time throughout the day can cause sleep inertia. Research shows ten to

twenty minute naps can help you stay alert for an extra two hours when you are sleep

deprived. That gives you enough time to finish several tasks and projects, all from a 20

minute nap. The social media procrastination is one of the most common forms
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because of today’s technology. The plain and simplest solution is to just ditch your

phone for a short period of time and block distracting websites that could prevent you

from completing what you need to get done. Self management has always been difficult

to understand and implement in your own life, let alone in today’s society with the easy

access that we have to technology. This habit cannot be completed in a single day, but

can be worked on and improved everyday. Procrastinators cause themselves more pain

and struggle to complete a task that if prioritized on time, would be a lot simpler.

Many people have researched about procrastination in general, but I am going to

be using the statistics from Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at

Depaul University in Chicago, and Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D., associate professor of

psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. First, twenty percent of people

identify as chronic procrastinators. Procrastination is a lifestyle for them and plays a part

in all aspects of their life. Second, we as a culture don’t think of it as big of a problem,

where as it represents a problem of self-discipline. It may be found more often in

America than other countries because we are so nice and don’t call people on their

bullshit. Third, procrastination is not a problem of time management or planning. "Telling

someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with

chronic depression to just cheer up," insists Dr. Ferrari. Fourth, procrastinators are

made not born. It is learned from actions in your own household, although the results

are indirectly an effect of the actions. Fifth, procrastination predicts higher levels of

consumption of alcohol among those people who drink. This is due to a problem of self-

discipline that procrastinators often don’t have. Sixth, procrastinators tell lies to

themselves. These include phrases that help them feel better about putting the
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assignment off until a later date. Seventh, procrastinators actively look for distractions,

particularly ones that don't take a lot of commitment on their part. They use this as a

way to distract them from their emotion of fear. Eighth, people procrastinate for different

reasons. They reasons were talked about in an earlier paragraph. Night, there are big

costs to procrastination. Health is just one of the many negative effects of

procrastination. Tenth and finally, procrastinators can change their behavior but doing

so consumes a lot of energy. It can be done with highly structured therapy.

According to the national center for education statistics, every day in a

kids academic life matters. This is because there are certain things that can’t be learned

outside of class, and there is nothing like the personal experience and conversations

with your classmates. They also state that poor attendance can have serious negative

implications on your life in later years as well. The effects of lost school days build up on

students and can be too overwhelming for some to recover and that’s where you get

dropouts.

The education week wrote an article about how attendance affects outcomes in

life. They believe that poor attendance affects achievement and goals in education and

in life generally. It also affects graduation rates in high schools and in college numbers.

It can have an everlasting effect on social and emotional factors for example: grit and

perseverance. They believe that the schools should promote as little of absentee in

schools as possible to create a positive and repetitive habit that will help them in life.

The NWEA wrote an article on how better student engagement improves student

learning. They researched and found that there are strong correlations between student

engagement and student achievement. They remain strong across all levels of
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education. Higher rated students in the classrooms test positive with student

performance on test, showing that kids who paid attention gained the most from the

class and lecture. They believe that it is important to ensure learning opportunities for all

students so they can all have the same chance to be engaged in meaningful ways to

help better than future.

I would also like to use a couple of movies to compare and contrast success in

schooling with the fears of failing. In the movie Expelled, the main character is expected

by his parents to be successful in school when in reality, he gets expelled and has to try

to cover up his expulsion and hide it from his parents. He never really liked school and

was originally happy with his expulsion, but that soon turned to fear of, not just of failing

due to expulsion, but fear of his parents who expect so much more from him was more

fearful to him in the movie. The fear of his parents was so powerful, without them

knowing about the expulsion, that he tried to get re-enrolled and fights to get back in

good graces with the principal. In the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, he wants to do

anything but go to school one last time before graduation. He has his principle that

wants to fail him for skipping school, although he can never catch him in the act, and not

allow him to graduate from his school. Ferris doesn’t really have a care in the world

about school during the movie, the only thing he cares about is enjoying his day off and

not getting caught while doing it. He feels very little pressure from his parents to go to

school before graduation, so it is more about taking advantage of the school system

than it is about failing, while still finding ways to succeed in high school enough to

graduate. In the movie With Honors, Monty loses his final thesis paper for his graduate

program and starts to feel the pressure that school puts on students. He feels the
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pressure of having his back against the wall, looking the fear of failing in its eyes and

watching it slowly approach him. He tries to fight this fear by recovering his paper but it

is very successful at the beginning. He later rewrites his paper on a new topic because

he has become enlightened, to a certain extent, about a new topic that means

something more to him. He turns in the paper late, isn’t able to graduate from graduate

school, but he goes to support his classmates and friends. The fear of failing doesn’t

exist anymore for him at the end of the movie. He was able to overcome a fear that, not

just students but everybody fears and come to terms with it to a certain extent. In the

movie The Breakfast Club, all of the students were in detention for different reasons, but

all of them have an aspect, that fear in school didn’t exist, but fear in aspects of their

life. This fear slowly changes as they learn about each other in detention and become

closer. The fear starts to change from little to no fear in school, to the fear that school

will never be the same. This fear is less academical fear and more of a social fear. In

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the fear of failure is the prominent dominating

aspect of the movie. For Ted, he has so mcuh pressure on him to pass history class by

his parents, but he fear is not of failing, but the fact that if he fails he has to attend

military school. The fear for everyone else in the movie is the overall aspect of Ted

failing because of their idea of their own band and knowledge of how successful it will

be. The fear for everyone else is based off of desire and need, whereas Ted’s fear is

based off of frightenment and overall dissatisfaction of the appeal of military school. All

of the movie, have an overall theme of how and how to overcome them in school. Fear

is always going to exist in school as long as you have the chance of failure, but if you
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can come to terms with yourself, you can channel this fear for your own personal

benefit, even if you end up failing.

In conclusion, procrastination takes place in many forms for all types of people. I

personally like to believe that procrastination is the idea of prioritizing a different

activities over another one. There are three different types of procrastinators and all

have different solutions. A lot of research has been done in the area of work and is still

being done today. School is something that should never be procrastinated and should

be taking serious as it can affect a significant part of your future. Fear in school is

something that causes issues in school everyday. Fear is different for everybody and

we all have different ways of coming to terms with this fear. Procrastination is more

noticeable in today’s society more than ever due to new advance in technology and a

lazier group of millennials being raised.

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Works Cited

“The 3 Most Common Types Of Procrastinators.” The Odyssey Online, 28 Aug. 2017,

www.theodysseyonline.com/3-common-types-procrastinators.

Blad, Evie. “Attendance Affects Achievement: Study Provides State-by-State Look.”

Education Week - Teacher Beat, 4 Sept. 2014,

blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rulesforengagement/2014/09/attendance_affects_achieve

ment_study_provides_state-by-state_look.html.

“Every School Day Counts: The Forum Guide to Collecting and Using Attendance Data.”

Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education:

School Year 2001-2002, E.D. Tab, National Center for Education Statistics,

nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/attendancedata/chapter1a.asp.

“Procrastination: Ten Things To Know.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers,

www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200308/procrastination-ten-things-know.

“Research Proof Points – Better Student Engagement Improves Student Learning

#Edchat.” Teach. Learn. Grow., 17 Sept. 2015, www.nwea.org/blog/2015/research-

proof-points-better-student-engagement-improves-student-learning/.