A lot of people procrastinate. I'm one of them. The problem is, lately it's gotten severe...
I'm in college, and I've been procrastinating for a long time but noticeably since I entered (age 15). In the beginning, it was "normal" procrastination, but the last few semesters has been getting worse. I
always make the deadlines, so I've never had any negative situations resulting from it. However, let's just take this last semester for example. I made all my presentations 1 hour (or less) before the time I needed to present - this includes research and everything. I had time before then, but I read comics, watched TV, slept, or just wasted time. It doesn't help that my professors all commented on how good my presentations were, and I even won "Best Speaker" for one.
I put all my papers off until the night before or morning of the due date. I have 4 papers and a final exam due today, and I haven't started working on any of them. I finished another take home exam that we had 3 weeks to do in 2 hours because I had no motivation to do it before hand. Somehow, I just "can't" do it early... it's as if I have writer's block if I start before the last moment.
I'm wondering if there's a scientific/psychological classification for this, and how many others experience this. While I'm using school as an example, I do this with everything in life.
There is some excitement gratification involved here - I get a thrill when I'm pressed for time and I truly believe that my best work is done when I'm completing something in the last moments. I feel the adrenaline pumping. Even if I do start a project before the last moment, I can't complete it until it's due - even if it's just holding off adding the last period to a sentence. For example, I had to submit a blog post every week at 11:59; I submitted them at 11:59:57 (time stamped by the forum), etc.
In bullet points, here's the rundown:
- No motivation before the last "plausible" time frame
- Thrill when working at the last moment
- No negative results/complications
- Belief that work is better when completed at the last moment
- Work started beforehand is not completed until the last moment