Procrastination and Multitasking are not your friends by Ruth

Procrastination and Multitasking are not your friends by Ruth - April 2016 Scholarship Essay

Throughout high school I managed to be consistent in two areas: procrastinating and multitasking. I never failed to put off assignment after assignment with the mentality of "oh i can do it later, it'll be easy." and then when it came to the night before the assignment was due, I would be on the floor in my room at 11:30 watching Netflix and texting while trying to write a paper or study for an exam and it always came back to bite me. Not putting in enough time to do the allotted task and not giving it my full attention lead to me hanging on by a very thin string of luck. My teachers saw great potential in me as did my parents and guidance counselor, time and time again they told me the dangers of procrastinating and though I respected them I did not take their wise counsel into consideration. Yes, sometimes I got lucky but 90% of the time I was left with Cs. When it came time to apply for college, though, I did enough to graduate I had not put my best efforts in and that presented me with very limited options for college. I am an intelligent person but my grades did not reflect that because my effort did not show up to the four year party of opportunity.

What I did not realize in high school is that multitasking is not actually possible. Multitasking is essentially just "task-switching" as Julie R. Neidlinger would say. We really quickly go back and forth between two or more different tasks. Because of this we are not able to do each task as efficiently as we would be able to do each of them if we did them in separate time intervals. When people multitask they think they are getting everything done faster because they are doing a lot of things all at once but in reality they are getting things done slower because their attention is switching in and out between each task. Not only does it affect the time in which we get things done it also affects the results. While multitasking more and more mistakes are made. One technique that would be most helpful when it comes to studying or preparing for anything would be the "Pomodoro Technique" this was invented by Francesco Cirillo. How this works: First, find a task you want to get done. Secondly, work for twenty-five minutes then take a five minute break. Repeat this two times and then the third time take a longer break. This will help your focus and time management. Another tip would be to think how long a certain activity is going to take you and then multiply that times two because most people underestimate the amount of time something will take.
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School and anything in life is much more enjoyable and usually less stressful when you give yourself the right amount of time to be productive and when you put your best foot forward. I have now been living in England for a year and have gained some life experience. When it comes time to prepare for a school assembly or lead a meeting I am much better equipped because I have learned the discipline of time management. Not to say I have mastered it but I can say, now that I put in more time and effort into my work I meet the deadlines gracefully and find myself to be much less stressed or flustered. It's a lesson better learned early on, I honestly regret not managing my time better in high school. Sometimes that is how life goes, you have to go through things that are hard, annoying, shameful, and embarrassing but will ultimately help you have a better understanding of certain aspects of life once you reach the other side and have faced the consequences, good or bad. "Stop putting off for tomorrow the things you could do today."

Managing your time helps you to be more productive. Productivity is not only good because you are getting things done but also because you will feel better about the work you have done and feel accomplished. Feeling accomplished is one of the most rewarding feelings and can motivate you to do more than you organically believed you could. If I could go back in time and change anything about high school it would not be the social crowd that I was associated with, nor would it be what dress I wore to prom, I would change my work mentality and break up with procrastination and multitasking.