Page 88 - A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

get your procrastination cue and unthinkingly relax into your comfortable
procrastination response. Over time, your habitual, zombielike response in
obtaining those temporary dollops of pleasure can gradually lower your self-
confidence, leaving you with even less of a desire to learn how to work
effectively. Procrastinators report higher stress, worse health, and lower grades. 10
As time goes on, the habit can become entrenched. At that point, fixing it can
feel hopeless. 11

CHANGE IS POSSIBLE

“I used to be a procrastinator but I’ve changed. I had an AP class in high school that really
helped get me into gear. My teacher assigned four to six hours of American history
homework a night. What I learned is to take it one task at a time. I’ve found that if I feel like
I’ve accomplished something, it’s easier to keep moving forward and stay on track.”

—Paula Meerschaert, freshman, creative writing

Occasionally you can pull an all-nighter in your studies and still get a decent
grade. You can even feel a sort of high when you’ve finished. Much as with
gambling, this minor win can serve as a reward that prompts you to take a
chance and procrastinate again. You may even start telling yourself that
procrastination is an innate characteristic—a trait that is as much a part of you as

your height or the color of your hair. After all, if procrastination were easily
fixable, wouldn’t you have fixed it by now?
The higher you go in math and science, however, the more important it is to
take control of procrastination. Habits that worked in earlier years can turn
around and bite you. What I’ll show you in these next few chapters is how you
can become the master of your habits. You should be making your decisions, not
your well-meaning, but unthinking, zombies—your habits. As you will see, the

strategies for dealing with procrastination are simple. It’s just that they aren’t
intuitively obvious.
Let’s return to the story that began this chapter. The arsenic eaters started
with tiny doses of arsenic. In tiny doses, arsenic doesn’t seem harmful. You can
even build up an immunity to its effects. This can allow you to take large doses

and look healthy even as the poison is slowly increasing your risk of cancer and