I'll Stop Procrastinating... Tomorrow.
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful script, Duke University Professor addresses the common struggle of students with procrastination. Despite starting semesters with enthusiasm, students often face a surge of real-life issues leading to delays in academic commitments. The professor introduces a novel solution: allowing students to self-select deadlines for submitting papers, with penalties for late submissions. This approach empowers students to manage their time effectively, illustrating how providing the right tools can help overcome human fallibilities like procrastination.
Takeaways
- 📚 At the start of the semester, students are enthusiastic and prepared, with clean notebooks and sharp pencils, intending to read and study beyond the syllabus.
- 📉 As the semester progresses, students face various personal issues, leading to a significant increase in procrastination and a decline in academic performance.
- 🔍 The professor observes a systemic problem of procrastination, which is not limited to students but is a common human behavior affecting long-term goals.
- 🌐 The issue of procrastination is likened to other areas of life, such as healthcare and lifestyle choices, where immediate desires often override long-term benefits.
- 📈 The professor introduces a solution to combat procrastination by allowing students to set their own deadlines for submitting papers.
- ✅ Students are given the flexibility to choose when to submit their papers, but they must commit to a specific date, making the deadline binding.
- 📅 Missing the self-set deadline results in a penalty of losing a percentage of the grade per day, which incentivizes students to meet their commitments.
- 🛠 The strategy provides students with a tool to manage their procrastination by aligning their immediate actions with their long-term academic goals.
- 🤔 It highlights the human tendency to understand and address our own fallibilities when given the right tools and incentives.
- 🎓 The approach encourages personal responsibility and self-regulation among students, potentially leading to better time management and academic success.
- 🎵 The transcript is interspersed with musical interludes, suggesting a casual or motivational tone to the message being conveyed.
Q & A
What is the common phenomenon observed by Duke University professors at the beginning of each semester?
-The professors observe that students start the semester with high enthusiasm, clean notebooks, sharpened pencils, and a determination to read all the material and expand their horizons.
What happens to the students' initial enthusiasm as the semester progresses?
-As the semester goes on, students face various life events such as weddings and family emergencies, leading to a decline in their initial enthusiasm and an increase in procrastination.
What is the systemic problem that students face according to the transcript?
-The systemic problem is procrastination, which is a result of emotions taking over and creating a heightened sensitivity to short-term issues, causing students to forget about long-term goals.
How does the problem of procrastination relate to other areas of life mentioned in the script?
-The problem of procrastination is similar to issues in healthcare, eating well, and exercising, where people have good intentions for the long term but struggle with immediate actions.
What unconventional approach did the professor take to address the issue of procrastination?
-The professor allowed students to submit three papers at any time during the semester but required them to commit to a specific submission date, with penalties for late submissions.
What was the consequence for students who missed their self-imposed deadlines?
-If a student missed their self-imposed deadline, they would lose a percentage of their grade per day that they were late.
How does the professor's approach empower students to manage their procrastination?
-The approach provides students with a tool to set binding deadlines, which can potentially be costly if missed, thus motivating them to manage their time and avoid procrastination.
What does the professor believe about human fallibility and the ability to overcome it?
-The professor believes that while human beings have fallibilities like procrastination, they can overcome or at least mitigate them if given the right tools and understanding of their own weaknesses.
How does the professor's method differ from traditional semester assignment structures?
-The method differs by giving students flexibility in choosing when to submit their papers, but with the condition that they must commit to a deadline and face penalties for lateness.
What is the significance of the music mentioned in the transcript?
-The mention of music in the transcript serves as a placeholder for audio cues in the video, indicating transitions or emphasis in the narrative.
How does the professor's strategy align with the concept of self-regulation in learning?
-The strategy aligns with self-regulation by allowing students to take control of their own learning process, set personal goals, and manage their time effectively to meet those goals.
Outlines
📚 Semester Start Enthusiasm and Procrastination
The speaker, a Duke University professor, discusses the common pattern observed at the start of each semester where students are highly motivated, with fresh notebooks and sharpened pencils, promising to read extensively and prepare thoroughly. However, as the semester progresses, students often face various personal challenges like weddings and family emergencies, leading to a decline in their initial enthusiasm and an increase in procrastination. The professor highlights that this procrastination is a widespread issue, not just among students but also in broader aspects of life such as healthcare and fitness, where immediate desires often override long-term goals. The professor introduces a solution to combat this problem by allowing students to set their own deadlines for submitting papers, with the condition that they commit to a specific date and face penalties for late submissions. This approach empowers students to take control of their time management and encourages them to overcome their procrastination tendencies.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Procrastination
💡Emotion
💡Long-term vs. Short-term
💡Syllabus
💡Deadlines
💡Commitment
💡Human Fallibility
💡Healthcare
💡Eating Well and Exercising
💡Misery
💡Tool
Highlights
Students start each semester eager with clean notebooks and sharpened pencils, committed to reading everything on time.
Despite their good intentions, students often procrastinate throughout the semester, leading to significant stress by the end.
Procrastination is described as a systematic, endemic problem influenced by short-term emotional responses.
The issue of procrastination is compared to challenges in healthcare, such as the reluctance to schedule necessary procedures like colonoscopies.
The speaker highlights the struggle to maintain long-term goals, such as healthy eating and exercising, when faced with short-term temptations.
To address procrastination, the speaker introduces a tool where students must commit to binding deadlines for submitting their papers.
If students miss their self-imposed deadlines, they lose a percentage of their grade for each day late.
The tool demonstrates that while humans have fallibilities like procrastination, they can overcome some of them with the right strategies.
The approach allows students to better manage their time and reduces the negative impact of procrastination.
The speaker uses this tool to teach students about the importance of commitment and the consequences of delaying tasks.
This method empowers students by giving them control over their deadlines, while also holding them accountable.
The exercise reflects a broader lesson about how individuals can use self-imposed rules to counteract their natural tendencies.
The speaker emphasizes that understanding and acknowledging human fallibilities is key to creating effective tools for improvement.
The strategy shows that with the right tools, individuals can make significant progress in overcoming procrastination.
This approach can be applied beyond academia, to various aspects of life where procrastination and short-term thinking hinder long-term goals.
Transcripts
this is Duke
[Music]
[Music]
University
[Music]
one of the things that happens to every
University Professor is that at the
beginning of each semester the students
come incredibly eager and they come with
clean notebooks and their pencils are
sharpened and they vow to read
everything on time and prepare and uh
read not just the material in the
syllabus but in fact beyond that uh and
and expand their Horizon and be
fantastic and every year uh people make
stories on top of stories toward the end
of the
semester weddings pop up relatives die
people need help the amount of misery
that happens at the end of the semester
is just incredible and the problem is
that um despite their good intentions
the student end up are procrastinating
tremendously throughout the semester and
paying a big price for that it turns out
to be a systematic endemic problem and
it's the same problem that we have
whenever emotion takes over and create a
heightened sensitivity to the shortterm
issues and get us to forget the longterm
it's the same problem we have with
Healthcare that in long term I want to
be
healthy but nobody ever wakes up and
feel that today is a good day for
colonoscopy um it's the same problem we
have with eating well and exercising
that in general you want to do it but
today and right now I really don't feel
like it h so I would come to my class
and I would give them a choice I would
say look this semester you have to
submit three papers you can submit them
anytime you want I'm not going to read
them before the end of this semester but
you can submit them anytime you want but
here's the trick you have to commit to
day to when you're going to submit each
of the papers and this deadline that you
commit to is binding if you stand by it
or you submit before it everything is
fine if you're late you lose a
percentage grade per day so now the
students could basically pick deadlines
for themselves that were potentially
costly that if they miss them they would
lose out all of a sudden I presented
them with a tool that they could
utilize to stop their procrastination
the the wonderful thing about this is it
says that look human beings have all
kinds of fallibilities for example
procrastination but they understand some
of it and if you give them the right
tool they will overcome it or at least
some of
it
[Music]
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