By Michael Miller (October 9, 2002)

Okay, we all know the story. It’s late at night, and the major assignment is due tomorrow. You look at the clock, and see that it’s one o’clock AM. You think "Good grief, I have to get ready for school in five hours." 

Here we are faced with a few options. First, we have to decide whether finishing it tonight will give you a better grade than, say, another day of editing minus a lateness penalty. Then we have the ever popular "Maybe I can fool my parents into thinking I’m sick, so I’ll have an extra day to work on it." During all these considerations, our minds usually recall the fateful day the assignment was given, before all the stress. We thought, "Oh, I’ll have plenty of time later, I can put that off for now." Later there was a party to go to, or a movie to see, or something else that you’d just rather do. Once in a while, we get lucky and realize that it’s not due tomorrow, but in a few more days. Usually though, in an almost masochistic manner, we still put the work off until the night before. These are the symptoms of procrastination.

The other day, my English teacher asked who actually did their work ahead of time. Surprise, surprise, only two out of 25 raised their hand. There’s always the handful of people who sneer when the teacher says, "Now, I know that this isn’t due for a long time, but you need to start working on it ASAP." And who hasn’t groaned and rolled their eyes when their parents asked them if they did their homework yet? Of course, there are the people that we hear about who actually do go home immediately and finish their homework before doing anything else. But, has anyone ever actually met one of these people? I know that I (and others, I’m sure) get tired of hearing about these ideal students, while still wishing we could be just a little more like them.

Ah, procrastination, the constant companion of every high school student, and most other people, for that matter. The ironic thing is, I actually put off writing this commentary, assuming (as is typical with most procrastination) that I could just crank it out in a matter of minutes. It would seem that no one is totally immune to this epidemic that has been around since the first unpleasant task that no one wanted to do.

Someday, I suppose, we might find a cure for procrastination some way to get ourselves inspired into doing the less desirable but more practical jobs. Oh well, I guess there’s always tomorrow, right?