Procrastination and Cramming

Procrastination and Cramming

Procrastination provides only momentary satisfaction 鈥� the long-term effect is stress and pressure. While you think you may work best under pressure, the last minute efforts result in lower quality work.

Procrastination Leads to:

  • Frantic completion of assignments 鈥� usually at a lower quality
  • Marathon catch-up sessions 鈥� resulting in stress and panic
  • Hurried cramming 鈥� resulting in temporary memory
  • Leaving out important details

Conquering Procrastination

  • Analyze your excuses
    • Do your reasons for procrastination fall into a pattern?
    • Can you catch yourself as you begin to make an excuse to postpone work?
  • Break all large assignments into a series of manageable steps.
    • 聽Complete one mini-step before attempting the next.
    • Incorporate these mini-steps into your study schedule.
  • Follow the same plan for all major exams.
    • Break large amounts of material to be studied into manageable chunks.
    • Plan 2-3 weeks ahead of an exam and use 20-30 minutes blocks of time daily for study.
  • Realize that change will not occur overnight.
    • Reward yourself every time you complete something on time.

Cramming involves frantic, last-minute 鈥� and sometimes all night鈥攎emorization.聽 In cramming you 鈥渞ent鈥� information rather than 鈥渙wn鈥� it for long periods of time.聽 This is聽the least effective method of practice聽as information is superficially processed and only temporary.

Students who have studied all night for an exam are at a disadvantage

They are:

  • Tired
  • Nervous
  • Know very little
  • Have had little practice at recall and application
  • Have little chance at remembering much
  • Probably hungry

Should you Need to Cram

  • Limit what you try to learn 鈥� be selective and learn the large chunks, important information, and essential factors.
  • Recite instead of re-reading 鈥� it鈥檚 too late to re-read.聽 Your hope in passing comes in mastering the few facts you have in front of you 鈥� don鈥檛 try and find more.
  • Limit your study to 10 condensed class note pages and 10 condensed textbook note pages.
  • Recite, recite, and recite those limited class notes and textbook notes.