Procrastination

by Jane B. Burka

  Caught between Cultures. When you take a step into a new world and you still have one foot back in the old one, you are straddling the divide. Having taken a step away from your old culture, you’re no longer quite part of it, yet as much as you want and feel ready to join the new culture, you may find that you are not fully embraced by it. As a result, you may feel that you are “living in two vastly different worlds while being fully accepted in neither.”13 For undocumented immigrants, the stress of having no secure place is exacerbated. First-generation students often feel alienated and out of place, especially if they belong to a racial minority. This experience of alienation can lead to feelings of inadequacy or resentment, and as we have seen, these feelings can lead to procrastination.

  It’s Harder Than I Expected. Moving into a new culture is hard, often much harder than people expect. The discrepancy between the new life you imagined and the reality you encounter can be the first “obstacle” that sends you into a tailspin of delay. First-generation students attest that it is harder to stay in college than it is to get into college, because both the academic and social pressures are much greater than they anticipated.14 Similarly, immigrants may find that their dreams of equal treatment and economic opportunity are frustrated when they confront language barriers, overt or subtle discrimination, and economic struggles in addition to all the cultural changes they face.

  Self-doubt. Encountering more obstacles than you expect can plunge you into the depths of self-doubt. “Maybe I’m not really college material.” “Maybe I don’t belong here; I should go back home.” “I’m not smart enough to make it.” Self-doubt erodes your confidence and willingness to try new things and take risks. If you’re plagued by fears that you’re not smart enough and you’re never going to be, you’re likely to retreat from hard tasks—why study or take steps to get a job if you’re convinced you’re going to lose out anyway? On the other hand, if you expect to benefit from your experience, even if you don’t pass the test or get the job, you will gain something.15

  Additional Responsibilities. Immigrants and first-generation students tend to work long hours, often for low wages, doing their best to build a better life. Immigrants may work multiple jobs to support their families or to send money back to the family in their home country. First-generation students are likely to work more than twenty hours a week while in college, attend school within fifty miles of home, and live at home rather than in a campus dormitory.16 Because they work not only to pay for school but also to help support the family, students often let homework slide, which then impacts academic performance. As they fall behind on their schoolwork, they feel increasingly discouraged and overwhelmed, and they are likely to procrastinate more and more as the term progresses. Both immigrants and first-generation students often are motivated to improve not only their own lives but the lives of family members. Going to college is not viewed as “solely an individual pursuit, but rather as the culmination of generations of effort and progress in their families and communities.”17 Many young people feel an obligation to make up for the sacrifices and hardships endured by their parents by doing well in school, but this pressure can lead to perfectionism and procrastination.

  Isolation. The more isolated people are, the more likely they are to feel depressed and the greater their difficulty in achieving success in the new culture. If you have trouble with procrastination, being isolated will make it harder for you to overcome it. Isolated first-generation students are more likely to drop out of school; immigrants are more likely to get caught in a downward spiral that isolates them even further. Isolation leaves you alone with your doubts about yourself and your decisions, increasing your uncertainty about how to navigate a foreign bureaucratic system, whether it’s a government or an academic institution.

  Suggestions for Countering Procrastination

  Make Social Connections. Our recommendation to seek support in managing procrastination is doubly important for immigrants and first-generation college students and is probably the most important suggestion we can make. Having a sense of belonging is a central human need.18 Social isolation and lack of motivation are more likely if you feel you don’t belong. Look for social, religious, or interest groups in your neighborhood and join in. Any connections you form with other people, whether they are from your homeland or the new land, will help you feel more comfortable in your new culture.

  Social connections are especially important during the first year at college, because students are at much greater risk for dropping out at this time. So join a group—a club, a sports team, a fraternity or sorority, a service group, a study group. Attend events sponsored by your academic department. Look for people you can talk to about your experience, whether they are from your home culture or the new culture. Keep in mind that making use of social supports is strongly associated with college success for all students.19

  Develop Your “College Knowledge.”20 Don’t be afraid to use your advisor to help you figure out how to find your way through the maze of college demands. Most colleges and some high schools offer study skills programs that teach time management, identifying priorities, goal-setting, and even managing procrastination!21 These programs can help you learn how to navigate the college bureaucracy—where to submit paperwork, how to get financial aid, where to find out about special events and opportunities.22 You might choose to participate in these programs for the opportunity to develop relationships with people on campus—people you can turn to when you are feeling stuck, frustrated, lonely, or caught in a cycle of delay.

  Pay Attention to Time. Different cultures have vastly different attitudes toward time, and it’s important to learn the expectations, rules, and attitudes toward time and timeliness in your new culture. Awareness of differences in time perception is critical in cross-cultural business, academic, and social environments. What does it mean to be “on time” in the new culture? What does it mean to be “late” for meetings, appointments, classes, and deadlines? Don’t assume that time means the same thing in your new culture. Find out before you get into embarrassing situations and time trouble.

  Learn to Speak and Write the Local Language. This one endeavor can change your life and open up many opportunities for your future. Sometimes people don’t want to learn the local language. Starting over in a new language takes people back to feeling like children, unable to communicate in an intelligent or sophisticated way. People may see learning a language as a test they are not sure they will pass; they put off learning the new language so they won’t feel ashamed or humiliated. This is a pessimistic view that keeps you from growing and learning.23 Yet neuroscientists suggest that one of the best ways to keep your brain active in adulthood is to learn a new language.24 Try to think of learning the language as an opportunity to get better at not just speaking the language but living life in your new home.

  Persist Past Obstacles. We have emphasized how difficult it is for many procrastinators to keep going when they encounter obstacles. As an immigrant or first-generation student, you face many obstacles, so it’s especially important that you not give up when you run into difficulties. For first-generation students, the first semester of college life is a particular challenge; those first months on campus are often overwhelming, confusing, and daunting. It’s important not to take too heavy an academic load; one first-generation student took four intensive reading courses in her first semester and felt like a failure when she couldn’t keep up. It’s hard to overcome the obstacle of initial academic failure, but it can be done if you don’t take it as a sign of inadequacy and if you learn from your experience. If you don’t do well in a class, remember that it’s not the end of the world. Join a study group (a big factor in academic success) or find a student who will tutor you in exchange for something you do well, like computer help or car repairs. And if you find yourself procrastinating, see your procrastination as a signal to pay attention to your anxieties and learn what it might be telling you.

  Stay Connected to Your Family. It
is understandable that people who are caught between cultures often want to extricate themselves from the pull of families, long-standing traditions, and old-fashioned ideas. You want to embrace the promise of the new culture and if your family is afraid of your assimilation, it’s easy to see why you would want to distance yourself. A clash is especially likely if you shift from a culture that emphasizes family and community to a culture that emphasizes individual interests and development.

  There’s no simple way to navigate your way through this painful conflict. But we believe that families are an important source of social and emotional connection. Helping other family members learn more about your new culture may ease the tension. For example, when parents are involved in the college transition process, they are more able to understand what their children are going through and are better able to be appropriately supportive.25 We encourage you to look for ways to maintain ties with your past, so that you can keep the richness of your heritage even as you explore the possibilities for a new life.

  Consider Meeting with a Therapist. If you continue to struggle with procrastination or other issues that interfere with your progress and satisfaction, consider consulting a therapist. Even if your home culture judges it shameful to admit to distress you can’t solve on your own, it is better to face that stigma than to continue to suffer and diminish your current life and your future. An immigrant professional woman in her midforties struggled with this conflict, saying to her first therapist, “No one in my community back home would ever see a therapist. But my husband suggested that I think of seeing you as being like talking to a wise aunt, and that feels a lot better.” People who have thought of therapy as something that’s only for severe problems or who thought they could only trust a traditional healer are often surprised and relieved to find that a therapist can be a healer, too.

  18

  Living and Working with Procrastinators

  We address this chapter to those of you whose lives are affected by someone else’s procrastination. Whether or not you, too, are a procrastinator, if you live or work with someone who always puts things off, you probably get into struggles, trying vainly to motivate the procrastinator to take action, only to become frustrated. It can be painful to watch someone you care about making a mess of her life, not knowing how to help. There is no simple solution for procrastinators, and there is no simple answer for those of you who are close to them. But we have ideas about what helps and what doesn’t.

  THE CYCLE OF MUTUAL FRUSTRATION

  I’m so fed up with Jamie not doing his homework. I’ve tried everything, and I’m absolutely at my wit’s end. He’s ruining his life! He can’t see it, but I can. But he won’t listen to me.

  Mike always promises to do things to help out around the house, but he never follows through. He puts off doing the things I ask, saying he’s not ready or it’s not a good time to start. Or he gets partway through and then leaves an unfinished mess for the rest of the family to deal with. I’m sick of it!

  My assistant is making my life harder instead of easier. She does everything at the last minute. Her work is sloppy, and I have to spend time correcting it. I’ve told her to change or else, but it doesn’t do any good. I don’t get it.

  Living or working with a procrastinator is hard: their chronic lateness, inaction, failure to follow through on commitments—it’s so exasperating and difficult to understand, especially if you are an organized person who handles responsibilities efficiently.

  It’s also frustrating because procrastinators are often indirect about what they are—or are not—doing, so you can be fooled into thinking that things are better than they really are. The procrastinator either does not want to tell you or is unable to tell you what is really going on. This can leave you feeling deceived or betrayed, setting the stage for tension and conflict in your relationship.

  It’s easy to be drawn into a cycle of frustration. Things usually start out with good intentions, but the relationship can deteriorate quickly. The basic struggle always centers on one essential problem: you want the procrastinator to do something, and he doesn’t do it. Let’s take a closer look at what often happens.

  Stage 1: Encouragement

  When people first become aware that a procrastinator is having difficulty getting work done, they usually offer encouragement: “I know you can do it.” “Once you start, you’ll see that it’s not so bad.” If you are not a procrastinator, you know you need to have a plan and put it into action with the deadline in mind. You know you have to do something to get started, even if it is unpleasant, imperfect, or frightening at first. So when a procrastinator is stuck, you may assume that with your clear thinking and encouragement, he will finally see the logic in what you are saying and will get going.

  Unfortunately, the procrastinator usually does not hear your encouragement as support. Instead, it may be taken as pressure to perform or interpreted as your attempt to be in control. You can’t assume that your good intentions will be well received. This is particularly true for encouragement that reminds the procrastinator of her intelligence, talent, or skill. “You’re so smart. Of course you will do a terrific job.” Deep down, even the most talented procrastinator probably feels inadequate, and such statements, although well meant, reinforce this underlying insecurity.

  A procrastinator may humor you and say yes, sound appreciative, vow to take action—and do nothing. He seems agreeable, but in reality she ignores you. Other procrastinators will immediately reject any encouragement you offer. Some respond with, “Yes, but . . . ” recognizing the validity of what you are saying and then coming up with all the reasons why it won’t work for them. “You’re right, I ought to just make a start, but I’ve got a lot of other things to do first.” Or, “Narrowing the scope of this report probably would make it a lot easier to do. But it just wouldn’t be the same.” Whether the procrastinator reacts to your support with apparent agreeableness, stymies you with a “Yes, but,” or rejects your help altogether, the end result is that your encouragement usually fails to get the procrastinator moving.

  Stage 2: Disappointment

  When it becomes clear that your efforts to be helpful have not worked, it’s easy to feel disappointed and let down. You’ve put out a lot of effort to help, and your advice has gone unheeded. This may leave you feeling as though you’ve done all the work while the procrastinator has taken it easy.

  You might feel disappointed with yourself, thinking that the procrastinator would have been able to make progress if you had just done a better job of helping; you could have been more encouraging or thought of a better suggestion, or you could have been more available to help. In essence, you are taking on the burden of responsibility for the procrastinator’s continued inaction.

  At this point, most people address the situation by trying even harder to help. They offer more encouragement and better advice, hoping that this will get the procrastinator moving and ease their own disappointment.

  It doesn’t work.

  The procrastinator will sense your disappointment and feel worse than ever. In addition to worrying about facing the task itself, he now must worry about you. Soon, the procrastinator will silently begin to resent your investment in his progress—you become another expectation to live up to, another person to hide from. Eventually, he will withdraw from you, attempting to shut out both your disappointment and your renewed efforts to help.

  Stage 3: Irritation

  Irritation and anger often follow on the heels of disappointment. You begin to view the procrastinator’s inaction as being willfully motivated or directed against you. Your efforts have all been thwarted; the procrastinator’s passivity is incomprehensible.

  Irritation can derive from several different sources. You may, for example, be furious because the procrastinator, who has rejected every effort you’ve made to help, is still stuck, reciting the same tales of woe you heard at the outset. By now he is likely to be angry, too, telling you, directly or indirectly, to “get off
my back.” Frustration is especially likely if what isn’t done affects your welfare, or if you feel you are watching your procrastinator self-destruct, risking dismissal from school, loss of a job, financial ruin, legal retribution, or deterioration of physical health. It may make you feel better to scold your procrastinator for messing up, because at least you’re doing something—even if it only makes things worse—and not just standing by helplessly.

  Stage 4: Standoff

  At this point, both you and the procrastinator are caught in an impasse. You are entrenched in the position of trying to get the procrastinator moving; the procrastinator is by now equally entrenched in the position of determined resistance. Tension can hang in the air like a thick, dark cloud, with resentment brewing on both sides. Over a long enough period of time, such a standoff can destroy what was once a satisfying relationship and lead to a rupture or to gradual estrangement in a marriage, a parent-child relationship, a friendship, or a business partnership. Unfortunately, the chasm sometimes grows so immense that the relationship is impossible to repair.