Procrastination – Do students recognise it and can you help them to reduce its impact?

Today I had a discussion about procrastination with my 9/10 pastoral care class. Students struggle to meet deadlines, leave work to the last minute and put themselves under pressure all the time. As adults we often do the same thing. I thought it was worth identifying what procrastination is and plan how to do it less.

The video below is a humerous look at procrastination and how it influences our lives. It was also a good way to initiate a discussion on procrastination and allow students to identify how they put off their learning. It gives some great language to use with students as well – Self Gratification Monkey and Panic Monster to name two terms used in the video.

In future lessons I am hoping to get students to identify their procrastination triggers and then put in place plans to avoid them, for example: “Snapchat distracts me from my work so I will turn off notifications in my phone and MacBook for 1 hour while I do my homework.”