“Diamonds are made under pressure,” students chant in unison as they protest studying for their upcoming exams. Let’s face it: deep down, we are all procrastinators, even the ones that keep denying it. We all hear our parents’ never-ending complaints about it. If it’s not the phones ruining this generation, it’s the laziness and constant procrastination (and snacking on sweets, but that’s a different story).
I want to argue the exact opposite: procrastination is actually the way to go. First of all, stress makes you think differently than the lack thereof would. A lot of people get more creative once they are stressed because the work actually needs to get done now. Two weeks before, it wasn’t an emergency and could be forgotten; even two days before studying hardly is classified as an imminent danger. But the night before? That definitely does, and you know what that makes you? It makes you think outside the box.
To procrastinate successfully, you have to manage your time wisely (yes, I am aware of the irony here, but it’s true!) to get your entire workload done in way too little time. You have to find strategies to maximize your efficiency (even with public enemy #3, according to parents: sweets).
You have to have a certain discipline to even make successful procrastination possible. There is a reason that things somehow miraculously work out in the end. It’s because people had to put in so much work in such a short time that they had to make use of any and all possible studying methods and strategies.
We should keep procrastinating. It has been the way for all the generations before us, and it will be the way for all the generations after us. (I’m totally not saying this because I’m the most infamous procrastinator myself).
