If there’s one thing I’ve mastered in my high school career, it’s waiting until the last minute to complete just about anything. I find that it takes practice to stare down a deadline as it creeps closer and remain unbothered until it’s in your face, the due date hours away, before scrambling to start an assignment you received days ago. It’s an art.
Unfortunately for me, there’s little room for procrastination in journalism, a lesson I’ve learned over the course of my internship with The Current. News is fast-paced. It’s a sprint, starting the second you get your next story to print. Blink and you’ll miss it.
So what’s the difference between that short time and the 24 hours before an assignment is due? Pacing yourself.
If news is a sprint, an assignment is a marathon; both are races against time, but when faced with an assignment, students often see the miles ahead of them as plenty of time to catch up, and they have time to stop and rest or smell the roses before making that mad dash to the finish line. Journalism, on the other hand, has no room for hesitation, make one small misstep and you’re out of the running.
Going into this internship, my senior project mentor and English teacher at Marblehead High School, Ms. Billings, told me I’m “allergic to deadlines,” and as a two-time teacher of mine, all too familiar with my penchant for dodging due dates like an Olympic sport, if anyone would know that about me, it’s her.
But is procrastination really a bad thing?
Almost my whole life, I’ve been told that yes, putting things off until the last minute isn’t good, but for so many people, including myself, that strategy works. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
“Until it really affects you, you won’t make any changes — when the pain outweighs the pleasure,” Ms. Billings, whom I consider an expert on the topic, said. It’s true; until a person faces worse and longer-lasting consequences than that short period of adrenaline-inducing stress before a deadline, their behavior won’t change.
Which brings us to the ultimate question: How do I change before the consequences catch up to me?
Call me a pessimist, or maybe just unwilling to put in the effort, but in my opinion, you don’t.
Humans are driven by stress — without deadlines, we wouldn’t get anything done — and it takes a different amount of anxiety to motivate everyone. Not only that but we are motivated by success and deterred by failure. Procrastination is our brain’s way of creating that perfect storm of stress-driven productivity that will deliver a final product. It’s in our nature.
Still, you can always prove me wrong by putting in the hard work to break the habit, but you have your whole life to do that, why rush? Stop and smell the roses first.
Max Arbo interned at The Current for his senior project.
