Can money combat procrastination?

photo: Flickr/ shutterhacks

When faced with essays, assignments and revision, one of most students’ greatest skills gets put into practice: the ability to procrastinate. It may seem at times as if we’re inevitably going to be plagued by every possible distraction we can think of, but perhaps we can solve our procrastination problems – perhaps even money can help.

Motivation is key at this time of year and yet, procrastination is practically unavoidable. At least, it is for those of us who aren’t lucky enough to be able to complete an essay knowing we still have weeks left until it has to be handed in. As much as we may tell ourselves that we want to finish that assignment long before it’s due, we can still end up panicking the day before, or even the hour before, to get it done. Ultimately we know that our own individual deadlines aren’t real, we know that we still have time.

In many ways, lack of self-control can pose a problem in our lives, and often there is a solution. We need to find a way to ensure we stick to our goals and yet, although we may know the goals are for the right reasons, catching up on that TV series that we never got a chance to watch just seems like a better idea at the time. And the consequences of failing to meet these goals? Well, probably not much, not for a while anyway. Weeks later when you’re pulling an all-nighter wishing you’d done the essay before, failing to understand why you thought watching TV could be justified, you’ll start to regret it. The truth is that many of us struggle to commit to our goals, especially concerning work, and so we need something else, or someone else to help us.

Public declarations of our goals can help. Telling people, even promising them, perhaps by a public announcement on Facebook that you intend to complete the essay early, can give us the motivation we need. Whilst we may not worry too much about letting ourselves down, letting other people down is different. So why not make the promises of goal completion to them instead? Most of the time this won’t be enough, however, as realistically your friends aren’t going to feel that let down if you don’t complete all the work you promised them you would. Most likely, their response will be a simple “It’s ok, we understand”.

So should the quest to achieving self-control be taken one step further? Should money be brought into the equation? Imagine that, rather than promising your friend that you’ll get the work done by the deadline you’ve set yourself, you give your friend £100 and instead promise them that, if you don’t get the work done, then that £100 is theirs. If you do get the work done, then you can have the money back. Simple right? Whilst the achievement of finishing the essay weeks before the deadline may not be enough to motivate you to get it done, then perhaps the thought of losing £100 will.

And if there’s still a risk that a friend may turn around and say “look it’s alright, you can have the money back” at the end of it, then there are even websites out there that you can sign up to, and make a pledge of a certain amount unless you achieve your goal, in which case there would be no turning back.

If you are one of the many plagued by procrastination, struggling desperately to achieve the revision targets you set yourself each day then perhaps using money as a way of committing yourself to getting the work done could be a solution. Just as long as you ensure the targets are realistic before you go pledging your entire student loan, of course.