As a first-generation college student my ultimate goal is succession within my education, in order to obtain an ultimate future that was unfortunately not accomplished by my family. Therefore, coming from this background holds a major impact in the way one conducts many tasks. However, as any student barriers are encountered, personally one has always been a self-driven individual throughout previous school years due the ambition to become a better version of myself. As a current sophomore, procrastination has recently become one of many obstacles in the processes of succeeding in my education. One of the factors that has provoked this behavior to escalate is that one is employed in a chiropractic office, which requires extra effort than a typical job. Although, work occupies a few hours out of my day it influences the way one handles school by developing new strategies that do not always solve problems with procrastinating. While this may be one factor, procrastination is a behavior that is becoming adaptive the further one progresses in school.
Procrastination is an associative learning behavior that is emerging rapidly causing many negative outcomes within my education. This behavior is prompted by other side factors besides work, which include socializing, excessive perfectionism, peer pressure or fatigue. Even though, theses factor are inhibiting procrastination one will need to formulate a way to shape this new environment. Therefore, one will decrease any factors that associate to this negative behavior in order to gain the time management skills one had previous, and as a result improvement will be noticed in grades, sleep, and stress. Ultimately, one desires to modify the behavior of procrastination as it is causing obstacles in order to accomplish my future of becoming successful in my educations as a first-generation scholar.
In order to vividly gain insight on procrastination and how it is being demonstrated in one’s daily routine; one utilized the ABC analysis for behavior. The ABC analysis signifies Antecedents, Behaviors and Consequences. This analysis will provide us with detailed information of what happens before, during, and after procrastination occurs. In order to obtain the most accurate information one conducted an ABC analysis on procrastination for a week during a typical school and work week. As one recorded the data from the analysis, one was able to obtain specific objective information related to procrastination.
According to the analysis, the antecedents one depicted instantly is that one tends to prioritize work and fitness before school. This is observed in an ordinary day, which consist of one attending school from 5:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. most days. Then, one will head to work around 1 p.m. and will typically get off at 6:30 p.m. Accordingly, one goes to the gym for an hour or so, if not one would usually get a call from a friend asking to hangout. During this week of conducting the analysis one noticed that not once did one respond with a “no” to a friend. The setting of the events were not school related at all; therefore, one instantly prefer to engage in that rather than schoolwork.
Afterwards, one initiates any school related task, which demonstrated various factors when trying to complete homework assignments. One of was able to depict that electronical devices such as phone and tv are stimulus to initiation of procrastination. As one began to complete schoolwork, one noticed to pick up my phone consistently replying to friends or browsing social media refusing to fully focus on schoolwork. Once the realization on time occurred, one would do work for about twenty to forty minutes and then either watched tv or went back to the phone. Most days one will not sleep until three o’clock trying to complete schoolwork. During procrastination one seems to lose focus constantly of the task need to be completed by outside resources that can be eliminated. However, since one is modeling and shaping oneself to this way, it is not as easy to remove theses distractions. This phase of the analysis provided one with the valuable knowledge of behaviors that are becoming a natural response to oneself.
As I recorded my daily activities one noticed that one prioritizes other factors besides school, and when it comes time to completing the task one seems to refuse to concentrate only the task. The consequences of procrastinating are major, as one will stay up all night preparing for the following school day. Most of the time, one was unable to fully complete all assignments due to the following day causing one to be disoriented in class the next day. Additionally, for some classes this has impacted my grades because one did not have sufficient time to review the material being tested on. Procrastination has developed many negative outcomes, which frightens me as it is a developing behavior for the last two months. Not only are the effects impacting my education but as my health.
One continues to engage in procrastination during completing my schoolwork because it is becoming a tendency to avoid complete tasks prior to deadline. Instead of spacing my workload throughout the week one is procrastinating last minute just to enjoy time with my friends or just to escape completing the task. As the behavior is becoming adaptive, one is beginning to formulate the ideal that one works under pressure, which is not necessarily true. Therefore, one desires that the outcome of this intervention allows me to break out of this developing behavior prior becoming an invincible obstacle, which will restrict me from accomplishing my ultimate goals in life.