Students got to enjoy various activities in between study sessions at the Procrastination Prevention Night, including crafts, snacks, an escape room, “Super Smash Bros.” and even a puppy session with Rex the labrador-mix.
On Wednesday, students attended the late-night event, from 6 p.m. until midnight. Study areas, tutoring sessions, success coaching and other campus resources were available during the time for students to use.
Caitlin Jordan, a program coordinator for academic success programs at the Shocker Learning Center, helped organize the event along with other success coaches and student coordinators — and even she struggles with procrastination.
“The first thing I always say is I’ve sat in the chair that you guys are sitting in,” Jordan said. “I struggle, even as an adult sometimes. I still procrastinate on things.”
She said it takes time to learn how to effectively avoid procrastination, which events like this focus on.
“It’s a skill you have to learn about how to do it,” she said. “You also have to learn how it works for you. Ways to priority-manage and to not procrastinate are different for every single person.”
Kylie Flax, a third-year psychology major and student coordinator with Supplemental Instruction programs, said she also struggles with procrastination due to perfectionism and balancing between work, life and school.
“I have a lot of trouble finding a balance,” Flax said. “Procrastinating too hard on something normally means I end up with a lot more to do at once, and then not everything can happen.”
With the March 29 deadline to withdraw from classes with only a “W” appearing on transcripts, Jordan felt it was very important to hold Procrastination Prevention Night.
“We wanted to be like, ‘Hey, you can still finish this semester even though you’re now kind of stuck with the courses you have,’ Jordan said. “You can help yourself by getting ready for what’s gonna come for the rest of the semester.”
Flax said brain breaks throughout the night helped students re-energize to keep up the good work.
“A lot of people, they get in the zone, and they never leave the zone,” Flax said. “The quality of their work goes down, and research has shown it’s really bad for you to just work for hours and hours and hours.”
Jordan said something that helps students is readjusting their view from “time management” to “priority management” instead.
“In reality, you don’t really manage time at all,” she said. “That’s why we started talking about it as priority management because what you’re doing is you’re using the time that you’re given, and you have to prioritize what you need to do.”
According to Jordan, this allows students to think about what they can fit in a day rather than stress about not having the time to do everything at once.
Jordan and Flax said they hoped students would take advantage of the resources during and after Procrastination Prevention Night.
If you are struggling in a class, contact SI Tutoring, the Math Lab, the Shocker Learning Center, a Student Success Coach or your instructor/professor.
“Don’t be afraid to reach out for help — help is not a bad thing,” Jordan said. “It does not make you a bad student. It does not make you a failure. It does not make you somebody who’s not going to graduate.”
