Procrastination at its Finest

By Hessa Al Habshi

It’s almost that time again, the dreaded finals week. The week every college student wishes would finish as quickly as possible. It’s the worst week of the entire course; and every single time we try to lower the pressure by preparing for that stressful week a long time in advance, but somehow it never works out.

Typically, a few weeks prior we would make ourselves a little calendar of what we have to do that week. We’d take care of our errands, and that list of work we have to finish but never seem to have the time to do so, slowly as we get ready to start that list, we realize that we don’t have to hand the work in until weeks later.

That is when bad ideas start to form, just as you sit on the chair of your desk, you think of seeing that group of friends you never have time to see anymore, or cook dinner with a family member, you’ll think of anything to do except for that impending list. So you convince yourself that you’ll have time to do the work later, rearrange your schedule, and say you’ll do it tomorrow.

The next day arrives, and you’d sooner do the work than head on over to a barn and buy yourself a horse. Even that sounds tempting compared to the work that’s piling on your desk, so you tell yourself you’ll definitely do it the next day.

Day after day goes by, and the weekend arrives. You’ve made sudden proclamations to anyone who would listen, saying that starting Sunday, you’ll tackle that pile of work like never before.

On Sunday, you’ve finally had that one full productive day, and you reward yourself with a day off on Monday. The same thing happens as the week slips by, and by the weekend you’ve barely finished any work.

Finally, it’s that week. Finals. The pressure is immense, and you’re seconds away from a nervous breakdown or a panic attack, fearing failure. You have so much to do in so little time, you congratulate yourself when you get a full two hours of sleep before rushing to university to attend that exam. At that moment… at that exact moment when you’re sitting in the chair, looking at the blank piece of paper in front of you, trying to remember the answer you memorized yesterday, that’s the moment when you promise yourself that next course will be different.