Anyone who has ever been assigned homework, a project or a paper in their lifetime has likely procrastinated. Whether it’s before-winter-break syndrome, almost-june disease or senioritis, students notoriously have a million excuses for why they lack the desire to finish their work on time. At its root, procrastinating begins when people have to complete a task that they don’t like, and just like their excuses, the reasons for why a task becomes disagreeable are widely varied.

School psychologist Judith Herzog thinks that often for students, procrastination begins when an assignment seems insurmountable.

“I think that they’re overwhelmed by the task and they set overly high expectations so they feel like they don’t have enough energy,” Herzog said.

However, not all students agree with this statement. Many feel that they can procrastinate because it will take minimal time.

“I procrastinate because I think I can get it done at the last minute. But usually that’s not the case and something shows up at the last minute so then I’m overwhelmed,” senior Minhajul Islam said.

In somewhat of a reaction, there has been a rise in “helicopter parenting” and over-parenting as parents become tempted to manage their kids’ time to make them more successful. According to Pamela Wiegartz, the Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard University, if parents over-parent their children, kids never have to develop their own methods of time management and develop their self control in that area. Herzog also agrees with idea.

“I think it’s difficult to know the line between providing structure and doing too much for [kids]. I think that this generation of parents sometimes makes the mistake of doing too much for them. If you do everything for them, then they have no independence skills,” Herzog said.

This is not to say that nurture defines a person’s ability to complete tasks in a timely manner.

“Nothing is definite, people will turn out in different ways independent of how they were parented,” she said.

Some students, like senior Cody Stewart, in defense of their decision to procrastinate, argue that they are perfectly capable of managing their own time, but that they work better under pressure.

“I do feel like I work better under pressure and I usually put things off until the morning before school or late in the evening and I get it done,” Stewart said.

But Herzog argues that this reveals a larger issue with a person’s work ethic.

“I think what they mean is that when they have a deadline, they eventually get it done, but without the deadline they wouldn’t do it at all. So it’s not a matter of them working better, it’s that they work period. With no deadline or consequence it doesn’t happen,” Herzog said.

Serious procrastinators are even known to seek out distractions, and with websites like iwastesomuchtime.com, failblog.org and autocorrecthut.com, there is no shortage of ways to be distracted and entertained while procrastinating.

“Human beings are driven towards pleasure and it’s something that we all have to figure out and discipline ourselves to do the things that are required of us and then do the things that are pleasurable. So they’re doing those things first because they’re pleasurable,” Herzog said.

Often, to make boring tasks more interesting, students will multitask. Some, in fact, think they’re more productive this way.

“I’ll put on some music or try to read something else to keep myself from being bored,” Islam said.

Students, however, shouldn’t allow themselves to be deceived; research has definitively proven otherwise.

“They’ve shown that multitasking is not the best way to complete what you need to do. It can result in a poorer job done,” Herzber said.

The key factor in overcoming the desire to procrastinate is to find motivation to complete the job, whether it’s going on Facebook after the homework is finished or not checking for new text messages until all chores are done.

“A person has to feel confident and they have to feel motivated. Motivation means that there is a reason. That reason can be an artificial time management system; it can be an award or it can be a grade, but there has to be a reason why kids will perform the behavior,” Herzog said.

The good news is, procrastination is not a character trait; it is a habit and one that can be changed with a lot of will power and a new approach to time management.