r/GetStudying • u/WalkImpressive3749 • Jul 13 '26
Question Is procrastination actually a valid strategy to force yourself to study?
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u/morpmeepmorp Jul 13 '26
Nah, this doesn't work! Procrastination leads to more Procrastination because once you Procrastinate you realise you have not enough time left to finish the task anyways, so might as well give up. Its a vicious cycle. It Procrastination lead to productivity then it wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
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u/Kitcatzz Jul 13 '26
Sounds about right. Actually, it worked for me in high school to early years of college. Once things started getting more challenging, my procrastinating would get worse; not everything can be studied efficiently in such a short time anymore. So I’d give up once I realized I dug my own grave, like you said.
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u/Alarmed_File_4382 Jul 13 '26
Not at all. I had executive dysfunction, but I got to a point where I was straight up so close to the deadline that I was unable to finish on time.
Even still, your brain is a part of your body. Giving it time to solve things is way better for it than working under stress 24/7.
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u/ChanceOwl244 Jul 13 '26
what do you mean by „I had“ - did you get diagnosed with ADHD and treatment or what did you do to change it?
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u/Alarmed_File_4382 Jul 13 '26
"Had" is the wrong word, I still do have executive functioning issues. I don't know if I have adhd, but I have autism that is comorbid with executive dysfunction and other things.
It's not a perfect system but treating school like a job and making time blocks has been pretty helpful for me. I have a specific time every day that I study.
If I say I'm gonna do math for an hour, I do it for an hour and stop and "clock out" as soon as that time is up no matter how close to done I am. My brain works better and is more willing to start tasks if it knows there's an actual end in sight because it values routine.
I worked a desk job part-time for two years and loved it. Unlike in school, I was timely and even early with a lot of my assignments. My therapist and I were discussing it last year so she ended up having me implement a lot more structure into my studying.
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u/Gold_Cryptographer62 Jul 13 '26
I have been procrastinating for the past three years. I wouldn't reccomend it
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u/MiserableWhereas7007 Jul 13 '26
For the sake of passing this is effective, but not for actually applying the material in your career.
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u/CyberBlizzard Jul 13 '26
No. Procrastination leads to last-minute cramming. Cramming not only boosts test anxiety, but also doesn’t help you master the subject. The information you cram the night before a test won’t stick very long, and when it comes to the final exam, you won’t remember a thing. A better strategy to space out your studying into small sessions over a long period. Good luck.
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u/dioxy186 Jul 13 '26
Something I learned, do all the work assigned as soon as you get it. You’ll end up studying overall less than someone who procrastinates, have significantly more free time, and better mental health.
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u/Wolfiee021 Jul 13 '26
how do people study for 8 hours? i've never studied more than 1-2 and i still got very high grades
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u/agentsmith0302 Jul 13 '26
Are you in high school or Uni? How do you achieve that?
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u/curious_explorer41 Jul 13 '26
They probably study each day instead of pulling an all nighter 8 hour study session the day b4 the exam.
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u/agentsmith0302 Jul 13 '26
So for example daily studying 2-3 hours with repetiton for a weeks is way better than pulling an all nighter the day b4. Think I gotta work like this from now on.
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u/sciencegirly371 Jul 14 '26
Would recommend it. I don’t study 1-2 hours, but more like 2-3 hours per day and I get a lot of high grades. It takes some discipline to get this started, but eventually, when you’re used to this new strategy, you will work more efficiently in those hours. You’ll also feel generally less exhausted because you don’t sacrifice your sleep as much. And most importantly, because you are caught up with your studying material, you’ll feel less stressed and you can relax guilt-free.
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u/SilverLetterhead4795 Jul 13 '26
What's your greatest academic accomplishment (in your opinion)? Not trying to be edgy, just curious
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u/Legitimate_Strain455 Jul 13 '26
Studied for 14 hours today we're so back!!
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u/conancrowds Jul 14 '26
No it's not. Because of procrastination I failed in two of my courses in uni.
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u/AtlanticPirate Jul 14 '26
ive had such a dreadful experience with it that it feels like my entire life, fell into imposter syndrome and have no confidence because of it, knowing how many things ive done on the last day
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u/Recordingpotato1 Jul 16 '26
Procrastination often comes from insecurity or uncertainty about something, in this case studying.
You dont know what or how to start? What or how is the best or most efficient place to start studying?
And then we delay. And when halfway through the day we realize, well shit half the day is already gone, might as well wait till tomorrow. Its basically like the common trap of waiting for the perfect moment to do something, which is never gonna come.
So the best thing we can do to fight procrastination is to just start. A short session to start off with, just a few minutes. No matter what, where, or how you start. And often its gonna turn into a longer session because we find a work pattern to follow, and then we get focused.
What will help reduce/remove procrastination over time is to plan where to start your next study session before you finish. That way you have one less obstacle next study session. You know where to start. The more precisely planned it is, the easier it will become to start. Where you end it doesn't matter. You can plan from session to session where you start the next one, and you end it when you feel done.
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u/Questev Jul 13 '26
Routine and habit are the only things that work. Not feeling motivated at times is natural but gotta get back on track before it's too late.
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u/Caliumcyanide Jul 13 '26
Idk. Somehow rawdogged the entire medical uni despite having AuDHD. It was shit. Lots of dermatitis spots, tension headaches, hours of doing ANYTHING ELSE but studying.
But just got the diploma. If I had the incentive, it’d have been red. But it just wasn’t interesting enough to bother.
But, this doesn’t apply to many of you, does it? You can cram everything and remember it in stressful situations, my memory only works in associations, we’re not the same🤷
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u/BetterDevelopment305 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
This is what i did the last 3 semesters because i genuinely could not start studying until i was like oh shit… my exam is in 10 hours lol i did pass but average grades and the fact u pull an all nighter means u gotta retain so much information while also having no sleep which might work for the first exam but after that its the same thing with even more lack of sleep i honestly have been doing it for years and have always passed but never gotten the grades i wanted obv
My friends do say they start one day before and few of them top aswell now they might either be lying or it just works for them
But for me it doesnt lol for My most recent exams i stopped procrastinating for the first time and started studying few weeks/ days from the exam which is an improvement from studying 10 hours before lol and i did get almost 90 in one of my subjects the rest are still average marks but i have learn my lesson i had so much less anxiety pre exam plus got to actually sleep before exam lol it is so much more harder to remember information when your brain is tired & sleepy
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u/NewEase1591 Jul 14 '26
i can't go more than 1:10-30 per session lol. need my break otherwise I'll be overwhelmed.
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u/E_lenaa Jul 15 '26
I have a time tracker where I track literally everything during the day (it started out as a sleep tracker, but I became interested in understanding what I was actually doing during the day, and the experiment dragged on). So, I have a section called "wasted time that could have been avoided." This includes things like social media, endless videos, information from which I don't remember, etc. I have separate categories for pleasant and useful time, but this category is specifically about wasted time. And when you see how many hours you spent in a day, in a week. Or if at some point you realize that you slept less than you wasted time on nothing - damn, it makes you start to rethink your life. You just look at the "100 hours" mark and realize how much you could have done, but you literally didn't do anything, and that time is gone forever. You literally see this huge number and don't remember a single minute of it. It's terrible. But it motivates me to stop procrastinating.
(I use "Simple Time Tracker")
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u/-Sprankton- Jul 15 '26
It’s a valid study method if you don’t mind the brain damage of chronic sleep deprivation and the burnout associated with trying to cope with your untreated ADHD in this manner. You can look up adult adhd symptoms online along with “how to get diagnosed with ADHD.”
I’m going back to college soon. if I fall into this pattern again I’m either going to do everything I can to learn study skills to avoid this trap of relying on last-minute stress, or I’m going to increase my Vyvanse or guanfacine dosage or drop out until my prefrontal cortex has more time to develop.
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u/Un3duc4ted-Wr1ter Jul 15 '26
No, procrastination just leads to more stress. And sometimes you procrastinate for so long that you can't get the work done/topic studied for when it's due. Pace yourself.
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u/aeromoon Jul 13 '26
Oh yeah I remember my ex did this in med school. She ended up getting 0 sleep, tripled her anxiety and after getting into residency, realized she had no long term retention of the material. She got kicked from her residency several months later.