Freshman Blog: Procrastination + Facebook = No time for homework

By Neil Rasbury

Originally, I thought time would be a lot easier to manage once in college. We’ve all heard that you need to have good time management. Parents, teachers and alumni have told me this is something they wish they would have known about. I thought to myself, “Seriously, this has got to be a joke right?” In reality, they knew much better than I did. 

In my high school, I participated in a regular amount of clubs. All year, I jugged between sports and fine arts. The main factor was that everything was always after school at a certain time. My sports would be everyday at 3 p.m. and end at 4 or 5 p.m. Fine arts would be one day a week. Also, during my high school career I didn’t care too much about hanging out with anyone. I would see them tomorrow anyway, so what was the point?

In college, it’s a different story for me. With essays, speeches and exams, it’s difficult to make time to study. I always e-mail or call my folks so I’m centered for the week, but if I have an exam on Monday, a speech that needs to be written by Tuesday and an essay that needs to be done by Wednesday, when is the right time to get them all done? 

I used to use my job as an excuse for having problems with time management. Working weekends is mandatory, so I would have a parent pick me up from college, take the train, work a 5-hour shift and then come home. I’d be dog-tired, and wouldn’t feel motivated to do an upcoming assignment that would be due at the start of the following week. However, when I changed my schedule to work every other weekend, I learned I was the one causing myself so much stress, because of one major factor: procrastination. 

Whenever I would start to study or do work, I would put on my headphones and open up iTunes. Better yet, I’d go on Facebook for many hours at a time. Or I would hang out with my friends until the late hours of the night. And I would still have to get work done. I constantly play computer games. Not a day goes by when I don’t devote about 30 minutes to an hour playing at least one game. Because I am constantly up in the dead hours of the night, when I get back to my dorm after a stressful day of classes, I sleep for about 2-3 hours. I wake up feeling refreshed, but, instead of focusing on my present workload, I visit my friends on the other floors of my building. 

So now, I understand what I have to do. I need to take more time for me and make a schedule that maps out everything I need to do during the week, like extracurricular activities, chores like laundry and moments to study. This will definitely help me in the long run.