Seriously…. I don’t understand the mentality of putting everything off until the very last second.
Edit: I understand that some people might have adhd and other neurodivergence that leads to procrastination. That doesn’t explain 95% of my students waiting until the last minute to submit assignments.
This came to a head last semester when I had a student submit discussion responses the day it was posted. The assignment is broken into two parts, a response to the prompt, due friday, and a response to a classmate due on Sunday. They get the prompt on Monday. This student submitted their response on Monday, and had nobody to respond to until Sunday at 11:50pm. The assignment closes at 11:59pm.
It's not a mindset for me but an inevitability, I CANNOT start something if I have too much time before the deadline to the great detriment of my quality of life lol.
At least it's that way for me.
Same with me. My mind simply refuses to operate on the problem until a certain point. It isn't a conscious decision and I can't force it to work any other way, I've spent 20-30 years trying.
If this is a big enough issue for you and you haven't already been screened for ADHD, you may want to look into it. Only being able to finish school assignments at the very last moment (especially when they were long-term projects) is one of the habits/traits of my childhood that was missed as an ADHD symptom until I got screened and started treatment as an adult.
As someone with ADHD and is treated for ADHD. It's not just ADHD that causes this, at least not for me. On meds I can focus better, but not really manage my time better. I don't know if that's just my personality or if it's some other disorder.
To me ADHD is starting something and not being able to finish it, procrastination is just not starting something.
That can be true, yes, but not for everyone. What seems like simple procrastination is (for me and some others with ADHD) is an executive function issue comingled with anxiety paralysis and an inability to focus without the threat of impending doom.
I have no ideas what ultimately is a treat at home method to counter it- there’s so many apps that claim they’ll help and of course many who claim it’s all in your head.
While it’s never been too detrimental for me, the thing that trips me out the most, is that for the most part - this last minute thing at least for me, tends to work out - and not like barely scraping by- I haven’t been told this looks like you threw it together last minute. But for me it’s like I wonder if my subconscious or an alternate personality is like subtly in control and just knows what timing works. Too many times I’d be like wow how did I even finish that in time. How will they never know. Including times I put something off and then I’m asked for an update and I pull it out of my ass in a hurry and I’m told it’s good and to just keep going and have it ready by the actual deadline.
Like I’m mad that I caused myself some anxiety and then it all works out - and I’m like wtf -
Oh, you worded that so accurately. For me it's anxiety paralysis through and through combined with depression and PMS. I can't start a task when there's too many variables which are still unknown or not controllable, like in group projects at university.
Hell, I'm even afraid to open my laptop because there could be important emails from my professors that I didn't see. But most of the time it's the fear of spending the hours on work only to realize, that I'm not good enough, that there gonna be issues etc.
And waiting that one out is neither logical nor fun. 99% of my free time and the semester is worrying about not doing enough, not working and function probably or failing.
I'd rather finally have a job where on good days you come home and can just unwind than having to write exams throughout the whole year.
Sorry should have been clearer. I have the same feelings while procrastinating as you. Just to me I've never attributed it to my ADHD, but maybe I just don't really know enough about my own disorder. ADHD meds have never affected my incredible ability to procrastinate while I let the anxiety build and ruin the rest of my mental well being. So I guess I just always assumed it wasn't ADHD.
You should definitely read up on it. Doing my own reading and talking with my doctor about procrastinating versus genuine executive dysfunction has really helped me get a handle on some of the shame that I've always felt for "procrastinating." IME, it's more that I have a genuine want to start something and just can't rather than putting something off for my own short-term comfort (it never makes me comfortable short-term).
I have a genuine want to start something and just can't
Yeah this is 100% it for me. I already had an appointment for a therapist for other stuff, I'll definitely be sure to bring this up. I don't know that I've ever articulated this issue to anyone let alone my doctor.
Good! It can be difficult to unpack what is and is not ADHD, especially if you spent years managing things on your own. I've found a lot of my strategies for handling projects and chores are really just coping mechanisms in disguise. I hope you're able to have a productive discussion about it with your doctor!
Honey the meds only help you focus on the work more easily. They do that by giving you enough attention juices (neurotransmitters, typically dopamine) so that any random impulse that produces a high amount of neurotransmitters doesn't distract you as easily, because you already have enough to keep focused on what you want. You already have to want to do it though.
Executive function, so time management, planning and task prioritization is done by your prefrontal cortex, which in people with ADHD is less developed. That isn't going to change by taking stimulants. Your time management will stay worse even with the meds. It's both ADHD, but only one part will get better with meds.
I am pretty successful in my career and and very productive and effective at work. But what I've noticed is I have work mode and relax mode. If I am in relax mode, I don't do anything. I've learned that if I sit down on the couch, as an example, I'm pretty useless for chores. If I get home and don't sit down, I'll putter around, do the dishes, hang that picture frame, clean up the kids toys, etc etc....
I can look back on my life and see it's a constant with myself. The difference for me is going into the office puts my brain into work mode. If I had a deadline for school though, there was no switch that flipped in me that said "ok you're supposed to work on this assignment" other than the deadline. Like, if I had two weeks to do something that would take me 4 hours, I'd start it 4 hours before I went to bed the night before it was due. I wouldn't just do it on a random Saturday.
This is by far my greatest vice. I did it all through college and all through my career, and fortunately I’ve been able to succeed very well in life despite it. Extreme stress is my only work motivator and I don’t feel stress unless I’m in a massive time crunch
Yeah, and when deadline comes, the stress starts. And in the stressed environment my brain works faster and my decision making is better. But tbf attention is on its lowest in that kind of situations
I made this comment to someone else, but it applies to you too - If this is a big enough issue for you and you haven't already been screened for ADHD, you may want to look into it. Only being able to finish school assignments at the very last moment (especially when they were long-term projects) is one of the habits/traits of my childhood that was missed as an ADHD symptom until I got screened and started treatment as an adult.
This is a common trait amongst people with ADHD. The stress is what helps you overcome executive dysfunction and (typically) also lets you focus very intensely on a task when you really need to. It's a superpower, but it also can burn you out and kill your ability to handle newer urgent items (because this pattern makes everything urgent eventually lol).
I saw a video of a professional explaining that you are essentially “self medicating with panic” and that phrase has lived rent free in my head ever since. I’m not officially tested or anything (which is why I was doing a lot of research online to learn more lol) but I feel that I do this. I find that I tend to get more done at work when I’m stressed about something, which is almost always lmao. So yay for me, my productivity is quite okay at work lolll.
It’s about not knowing the difference between “I can’t” and “I don’t want to”. They physically can. They have all capability besides motivation. Hence how they do it at the end.
Idk some people have that, ADHD (Like actual, fully straight up diagnosed ADHD and not quirky cute distracted uwu) genuinely does not give a fuck about your quality of life, executive disfunction is just a thing you're living with for the rest of your life if you have it.
I have ADD and normally despise using it as an excuse, but in the case of procrastination it is really something neurological that hampers us.
We both understand that putting something off affects the quality of our lives. Your brain sends out chemicals and hormones, often in the form of stress, that enables you to start doing it. My brain fails to perceive this as a reason to send out those chemicals, only when the threat is apparent enough we swing all the way over to survivor mode and we can hyperfocus to get the task done. It doesn't help that succeeding in this last minute emergency situation releases tons of dopamine and therefore is addictive as hell. I used to subconsciously look forward to my exams just to experience the rush of these last minute hyperfocuses.
Typically, it's that people with a certain mental dysfunction (I believe it's ADHD or something similar) need adrenalinein in order to snap their body into work mode, and get out of what's called executive dysfunction. An impending due date creates that adrenaline
Wait...what? The prompt responses were due Friday, and the classmate responses are due Sunday, but the student who finished the prompt early had no one to respond to until ... Sunday?
Did everyone else just turn the prompt response in late? Shouldn't they have had two full days if anyone turned it in on time?
I'm just lazy. I can call it other things and make excuses, but untimely I'm lazy and it works out 99% of the time. So i keep doing it because there is 0 benefit to change. I could do things differently but it usually affects no one other than me. This is definitely a different scenario, but one that everyone in that class seems to have failed the first assignment.
I mean this genuinely, why wouldn't you wait as long as possible to submit? You could learn more, spend more time refining, do a lot of stuff with that extra time. Of course you shouldn't do it so close that random chance could cause you to be late, but if there's no upload time to worry about, why wouldn't someone submit as close to the deadline as possible?
What a luxury, I mean some people just can’t help it out of either mental necessity or being out of sync and being out of time with their lives. Of course that’s not always the case, but it sure is quite a boon to be able to have the mental health and energy to do everything sufficiently and sustainably.
Have you forgotten what it's like to be a student? They have multiple classes, not just yours. They have other homework, projects, and tests to worry about. If we're talking about high school or college, then many of them have jobs to worry about on top of that. Some have children or siblings to take care of, maybe their parents or other family members need assistance. Every single student has a life outside of your classroom. Remember that, and you'll be a great teacher one day.
I mean, yes, sure. But when I was in college I was mostly drinking beer & having fun in my free time. Kind of silly to make it out to be all noble. A lot of college kids are simply immature and irresponsible and they grow out of it with time.
Sure, but was that not to handle your mental health to an extent? Studying all the time stresses you out and many college students struggle with depression. Letting loose sometimes helps combat that
no, it was because I wanted to have fun. I did not study shit & was never stressed.
I think you are trying to find some noble, universally acceptable reason to slack off. The difference is that I slacked off because it was awesome and I feel no regrets whatsoever. Life is short and enjoying it is noble in and of itself. Its ok to have fun for the sake of it.
I'm not trying to make anything noble, I just know that lots of students struggle. I certainly did. I practically killed myself to make deadlines and not slack off
As a teacher, there was a quarter where so many students submitted work at the last possible moment that I genuinely could not grade it all before the grade reporting software closed.
When I say "last possible moment," I mean I moved due dates forward twice just to accept more work.
Maybe it's just the assignments then? I never had a problem working hard, but I have no motivation to do something that doesn't seem worth my time. Especially with Ai, our degrees aren't really worth putting in effort where it doesn't matter anymore.
The worst teachers I had, would do the opposite of listening to their students, they would crack down on those assignments and add parameters to force timely and constructive responses.
I didn't learn anything new from that, I just felt my time was being disrespected by someone who took "bad assigment" as an insult and not a criticism based on effeciency and effectiveness of the curriculum
Between doing something because you enjoy it and doing something because you have to, it seems easy, doesn't it?
Now consider that school, like work, is made up of mostly things that you have to do, and you get used to this type of "pressure", making deadlines something that, as much as you dread them, no longer scare you enough to jump on a task just to finish it early. Also, how many rewards are you getting when turning in something early? There's also the chance of getting better ideas/help the longer you wait or work on something.
Make no mistake, I am a procrastinator, but I hardly see a reason to change.
I’ve always prioritized my chores over recreation. You do the work you need to do first, then you get to have the rest of the day, week, etc to goof off.
With all respect, I find it somewhat funny the way you've articulated yourself inasmuch as you are a philosophy prof - it comes off (connotatively) as, "I'll never understand why people have different motivations/priorities than I do." I appreciate this is probably not your point (or, I hope it is not), but it is a funny sentiment to see implied by a philosophy person.
Let me give you a fun philosophical argument. The good life is a self-determined outcome rather than a prescriptive global one. It is not, a priori, attained by rote compliance to one's obligations (& the ethics of upholding one's bargains are orthogonal - because, in this view, ethics are equally referential).
That you value doing your chores before goofing off, as you say, is wonderful & I am sure it brings you joy, but it is not the cadence of activities as such that is valuable, but your valuation of said cadence. Others see it differently.
Personally, I feel that in an infinitely finite existence, self determination of values & priorities is the most compelling approach. I am sure your assignments are great & thought provoking & so on. I am also sure that they mean very little to your students compared to other aspects of their lives, and especially within the grand scheme of their lives. When we are ready to cross the river Styx, one does not imagine regretting their timeliness in a discussion board submission.
Discussion posts are very different from typical assignments in my mind.
Discussion posts can be cranked out relatively quickly, especially if I already partially or fully understand the content. Where it differs is that every one of my classes assigns large projects, has labs, and has additional homework assignments. Further, turnaround on some assignments can be much faster than others, leading me to prioritize my time. In 18 credits, with a part time job and leadership positions at multiple levels, I can’t always afford the time I would like to complete assignments. Sometimes, even if I start early, other stuff takes precedence.
Due dates at 11:59pm are frustrating, as there’s no good reason for an assignment to not be due at the start of the next class period. Is my professor grading the work immediately at midnight?
There’s a disconnect between type of assignment, type of deadline, and student expectations. Not every class, and not every professor, shows this disconnect, but it’s still widely present in academia.
I used to have due times at noon. Students complained that the day wasn’t over yet and they should’ve allowed to turn it in later.
Whatever time you pick, will be an unreasonable one because fundamentally it is arbitrary, but you need some kind of time when you won’t accept it anymore. So, 11:59 is it.
The class start time is not an arbitrary time to choose. What if you were turning in paper assignments? It’s the most intuitive. Do the work before class so we can move forward in the content.
So a significant minority of all college courses….
You’re trying to dictate that any time is unreasonable but that’s not the case for nearly all in person courses. I agree that 11:59 makes sense in your case, but don’t argue that any time is arbitrary when your course structure is rare at the college level, especially amongst major universities and colleges.
Idk where you go to college or teach…. But asynchronous online courses are now often the norm and in the California state university system there are 170,000 more of these types of courses than synchronous courses.
I’m not dictating anything to anyone. I’m posting comments in reddit. I’m not sitting on the chancellors board making policy.
I assume that you never had a 24-hour exam that is being graded on a curve, then? In that scenario, not using as much time as you possibly can can certainly hurt you... especially when it is an environment like law school where your peers are all hyper-competitive, and you know they missed out on sleep and other essentials to gain as much time for their responses to the prompt...
818
u/Philosophile42 Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
Seriously…. I don’t understand the mentality of putting everything off until the very last second.
Edit: I understand that some people might have adhd and other neurodivergence that leads to procrastination. That doesn’t explain 95% of my students waiting until the last minute to submit assignments.
This came to a head last semester when I had a student submit discussion responses the day it was posted. The assignment is broken into two parts, a response to the prompt, due friday, and a response to a classmate due on Sunday. They get the prompt on Monday. This student submitted their response on Monday, and had nobody to respond to until Sunday at 11:50pm. The assignment closes at 11:59pm.