Understanding and Overcoming Procrastination in the IB

There is a fundamental cognitive difference between procrastinators and normal people. Everyone gets overwhelmed by work sometimes; even the busiest or most efficient people might feel overwhelmed when there’s too much work and not enough time.

But the procrastinator is different. The procrastinator might have plenty of time but he puts off work until there isn’t enough time and then feels scared, stressed, and overwhelmed. This means the procrastinator makes his own life much worse – does that sound like anyone you know?

This sort of behaviour has a massive effect on our IB scores, both in exams and especially because of coursework. By putting things off and avoiding work, we leave ourselves no time to work well. There’s no time to complete tasks to our satisfaction, and we end up with worse scores and worse universities than we could have reached.

Why Do We Procrastinate?

So why do we keep procrastinating? When we keep making poor decisions which are illogical, the reason is almost always an emotional one. The three most common causes of chronic procrastination are fear, anxiety, and shame. This could be fear that the work won’t be good enough, that it won’t score high enough, that peers will be better, etc. Whatever the reason, it is emotional and causes real problems. Fortunately, the problem tells us the solution…

The Procrastinator's Trap: Giant Goals

Let’s say you have a big project to do – maybe an Extended Essay, maybe revision for the IB exams. Whatever it is, you might find yourself procrastinating. If you’re honest with yourself, this is probably because you’re worried that it won’t be good enough.

This is because the procrastinator only sees giant goals – so he sees ‘The IB’ as one goal, or Extended Essay as a goal. Of course, these are impossibly big goals to take action on.

But the non-procrastinator sees things differently. Non-procrastinators realise big goals are just groups of small tasks. While doing the EE might seem impossible, googling the markscheme, emailing your teacher for guidance, and looking at the textbook are all easy tasks. And this is the secret: seemingly impossible tasks are just made of lots of very possible tasks!

Rewiring Your Brain: The Small Steps Approach

To change from a procrastination mindset to a non-procrastination view is not really that hard. The next time you start to feel nervous about a task, grab a piece of paper and start to list all the things necessary to complete that task.

Maybe to do an essay you would have to:

• Do background research
• Find appropriate books
• Make a mind map
• Make a plan
• Write
• Edit
• Submit

Now focus on the first thing: for example, the research. What small tasks does the first thing include? Google the question, look at Wikipedia articles, look at the textbook. Now do that first small task, like checking the Wikipedia article on a certain topic.

That’s it! You’re working! Keep doing that over and over again and the essay will finish itself. It is possible to rewire your procrastinator brain. Now you know how, start doing it. Even at this moment you have things to do…yep! You just thought of one right? Probably one you really don’t want to do. So grab some paper right now, I’ll wait… Good! Now write the task name at the top and just start listing all things you have to do in that task. Ok, now write all the subtasks. If it looks too hard, just keep doing this. When you think you can do the first task, get going!

What are you still reading this for? GO OWN IT!