- I forgot I got that term paper due tonight. That's plenty a time. Think I'm gonna watch my favorite show, Above the Noise. Tell me if this sounds familiar: you got a plan to get an assignment done early, but something comes up that make you feel like you gotta wait 'til the last minute. If this sounds like you, congratulations, you're pretty normal. One study found that up to 95% of college students procrastinate. That's a lot of people. So if you're watching this video instead of doing something you're supposed to be doing, first off, thank you for watching. Second, don't feel bad, 'cause you're probably not alone. We hear from parents, teachers, and the media that procrastination is all about bad time management, laziness, and a lack of willpower. And it's not just students who procrastinate! We're gonna check on Lauren and see if she's done editing this video that's due pretty much today. Hello. - I am totally not looking at dogs! - Come on! But could procrastination actually be helpful? It turns out some of the greatest minds were known to procrastinate, like Mozart, who waited to write the overture to his famous opera, Don Giovanni, until the night before the premier, or Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote his I Have a Dream speech at the last minute, and even improvised some of it in the moment. And the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln? Also last minute. Now, there's no doubt that putting off an assignment may stress you out, but this pressure may not always be a bad thing. It could actually be a good motivator, according to psychology professor Mary Lamia. In her book, What Motivates Getting Things Done, she talks about two groups of people: task-driven and deadline-driven. And according to Lamia, neither approach is wrong. Task-driven types, they like to create to-do lists and break big projects into smaller chunks. And that way they can get things done ahead a time, leaving plenty a time for revisions. Basically, the total opposite of me. I bet we got time to get somethin' to eat! I think we got time for a little tea, right? I'm more of a deadline-driven person. We are the type of people that like to wait 'til things get down to the very last minute. That way, we can use that stress to motivate us to get our work done. We wanted to know more about this, so we went straight to the source. - [Woman] Hi, Miles. I interviewed a whole lot of highly, highly successful people. People who turned out to be procrastinators had a tendency in grammar school to come home and put their homework aside. They just wanted to go out and play, so they would do it late at night, or on the way to school, or during recess the next day. But they always got things done. - And there's actually a biological reason to why we procrastinate. It has to do with how our brains are wired. Many studies involving brain scans show that it comes down to a battle between our prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for planning and decision-making, and the limbic system, which is our brain's emotion center. The limbic system usually wins out. So when we are faced with an unpleasant task, our brains might be tellin' us to do somethin' like, say, binge watch Above the Noise episodes. Actually, you guys should probably do that, because we could use the views. And get this: this natural inclination to do something more fun, like, say, play video games or take a walk, might even get your creative juices flowing. A little bit of procrastination, or delay, as some researchers call it, can be a good thing! It gives the mind a chance to wander and think of solutions. But too much procrastination, or chronic procrastination, is another story. Chronic procrastinators put off important tasks way too much, which ends up hurting them. And recent research from all over the world suggests that one in five people fall into this category. Wow! One in five, that's a lot. Doesn't make me feel so bad when I wanna iron all my t-shirts instead of writing that essay that I shoulda started a week ago. But chronic procrastination equals serious problems with stress. One study tracked a group of college students throughout a semester. At first, those who procrastinated seemed to be happier, which makes sense since they were having more fun. But as the semester rolled on, the stress caught up to them and they reported having more overall stress and illness than non-procrastinating students. One of the scientists wanted to figure out why people were doing this, and discovered it often comes down to something called self-handicapping, when you can't get anything done 'cause you're afraid of failure or you're a super-perfectionist. These students might procrastinate so they have an excuse in case they fail, like "I totally woulda gotten an A on this test "if I woulda just studied earlier." But there is even a debate on whether or not chronic procrastination is bad. My old friend Dr. Lamia would say "Chronic procrastination isn't the problem many studies "make it out to be, as long as the procrastinators "are meeting their deadlines." So if you think you might be a chronic procrastinator, get off YouTube and get back to work. But before you do, let us know what kind of procrastinator you are and what strategies you've come up with to deal with it. And make sure that you watch this video, this video, and maybe this one too. Oh, and you know, hit that like and subscribe button too. And you know, we'll catch you guys next time! Bye!