Procrastinators unite … Tomorrow!
3 minute read
Procrastination is a habit that befalls the best of us. No matter how hard we try to be disciplined most of us tend to slip into the state of procrastination. This is the reason why institutions have implemented guardrails such as deadlines to ‘nudge’ us into timely and organized action. I’m sure everyone recalls wishing deadlines were flexible and “if only I had a little more time, I would nail this project (One night before submission)”. We all hate deadlines, but the question remains, do deadlines promote better performance or detract from our end work product.
The famous Behavioural Economist Dan Ariely and a few friends attempted to answer this question. Professor Ariely performed an experiment on his university students. He assigned 3 assignments to be completed during a 12-week trimester. However,r he gave different instructions on the submission timelines to 3 different classes.
· The students in the first class were informed that they could set their own deadlines for each assignment. They were also instructed that once a deadline is set, they would be penalized 1% of their grade for every day their submissions are delayed from the self-imposed deadlines.
· The students in the second class were informed that there were no interim deadlines as long as the 3 assignments were submitted before the end of the trimester.
· The students in the third and final class were given strict periodic deadlines (4 weeks, 8 weeks and 12 weeks) for each of the assignment allotted.
The idea behind this experiment was to evaluate which set of students performed the best in their assignments (Grades were used as a proxy for student performance).
Professor Ariely and his colleagues observed that most of the students in the first group (Students that set their own deadlines) set evenly spaced deadlines through the trimester (for the most part) indicating that they were aware of the perils of procrastination.
On receiving the final grades for all three classes, it was observed that the class which were given strict deadlines by the professors fared the best followed by the class which was given the flexibility to set their own deadlines. The class with no interim deadlines fared the worst in terms of grades, indirectly indicating that students procrastinated till the end of the trimester and rushed to submit their papers near the end of the terms and hence compromising on quality and grades.
By this very simple experiment, Dan Ariely and his colleagues were able to prove that most people suffer from procrastination and unless they are protected by the guardrails of deadlines (voluntary or externally imposed) their performance is likely to be negatively affected by the same.
Original research by Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch
https://people.duke.edu/~dandan/webfiles/PapersPI/Procrastination%20Deadlines%20and%20Performance.pdf