Beginning around junior high school, I became a pretty bad procrastinator. My college career has been no different. I have been putting things off until the last minute for four years, no matter how important these tasks may be. I would not wish this bad habit on anyone as it is a habit over which I have had multiple nervous breakdowns.
One thing alone that causes about 98% of my procrastination is (anybody?): Facebook. This might not come as a surprise to anyone, but Facebook is definitely the thing that brings me down and keeps me from getting my work done in a timely manner just about every night. Even as I sit on my bed writing this blog post, I look up and see a Chrome tab labeled "Facebook" sitting there glaring at me, waiting for me to succumb to its tempting powers (add Odyssey/sirens metaphor here).
Oftentimes, I get really, truly upset about how badly I procrastinate. When I get upset with myself about it, I lose any other interest I had in working on whatever I need to be working on. That leads me to Facebook even more often. Then I realize, once more, how much I am procrastinating and how badly I need to get back on task. It is almost literally a never ending cycle, and a very miserable one at that.
As I am in my senior year of college, I ask myself every day whether or not I will ever lose this bad habit, get my life together, and finish out the rest of this year well enough to leave with a decent GPA. I made it my goal at the beginning of this school year to make this year my best in my career at Lyon. So far, however, it has not been, and I know it is entirely my fault. When I ask myself this question everyday (whether or not I will dump procrastination and begin dating time management), I cannot help but fear for my career as a teacher. I have had a pretty tough time getting things going well in my class at Cave City. And this is only my internship. Yes, there is the fact that this is not MY class, and I cannot necessarily do everything I WANT to do with the students. And there is the fact that getting up in front of 23 students who are just a few years younger than me does not flow naturally through my mind. Getting in front of my classroom everyday gives me a new anxiety every day. But at the same time, I absolutely love my students. I honestly could not have asked for a better class to be with in my internship year. So when I really think about it, I know that what is causing me to have a tough time getting into my internship is procrastination and my lack of planning.
Although I have told myself repeatedly that I will work on my procrastination habits to get them out of my life, I know that it is not going to just happen cold turkey. I will REALLY have to work on it, because I know that I will not be a great teacher if I am a procrastinator; it will ruin my career. I want to get it taken care of now so that, by my second or third year of teaching, I will always be on task and always have things completed on time. The main reason I want this habit to change is for my future students. Number 1, I do not want them (or their grades) to suffer in my classes because I am not on time with things. Secondly, I want to be a good role model for my students by showing them that timeliness is everything, and that procrastination is a habit that can ruin almost anything. I do not ever want to see my students procrastinating as well as I do, because I know the outcomes, and they are not pretty.
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