Solar shares his experience with Lunar, speaking of procrastination, that is one of common problems that students would probably encounter.
Solar: What is the matter of procrastination to students? This question is highly concerned by each educator, who assigns them homework with a deadline, and who expects them to get their homework done on time.
Lunar concerns the matter of procrastination to students, and wonders these questions: What might be the causes to students' procrastination? What might be the methods to turn their procrastination into their motivation?
Lunar: Is procrastination an important problem to students?
Solar: Yes. Very important.
Lunar: What is the consequence of the matter?
Solar: Procrastination can lead students to develop into indolent idle men in the future. How could I possibly witness my students end up indolent idle men? As their teacher, I was aware of my duty and responsibility to guide them to cope with procrastination.
Lunar: What might be the causes to students' procrastination?
Solar: The causes to their procrastination might be emotional regulation, task aversiveness, present bias, fear of failure, and low self-efficacy.
Lunar: Emotional regulation?
Solar: A task can bring them negative feelings like anxiety, boredom and self-doubt. A phone can bring them positive feelings like excitement, interest and pleasure. So that they procrastinate to avoid the negative feelings associated with a task. They choose temporary pleasure like watching movies over long-term reward like a good grade.
Lunar: How could they possibly cope with emotional regulation?
Solar: The methods to cope with emotional regulation are self-forgiveness and self-reflection. Through self-forgiveness, they forgive themselves for procrastination on one exam, and procrastinate less on the next one. Through self-reflection, they can reduce negative feelings. Nothing is to be feared, only to be understood.
Lunar: Task aversiveness?
Solar: The more unpleasant the task feels, the more likely they are to avoid it.
Lunar: How could they possibly cope with task aversiveness?
Solar: The methods to cope with task aversiveness is shopping for 5 minutes and visualizing progress. We tell them they only have to work on the task for 5 minutee, that encourages them a start a task. We tell them they only have to work on the task one step by one step, that encourages them to visualize their progress.
Lunar: Present bias?
Solar: It's also called temporal discounting. They heavily discount future benefits like future success in favor of a small immediate pleasure like watching movies.
Lunar: How could they possibly cope with present bias?
Solar: The Salami Slice method. If I assigned them an essay, I don't just tell them write essay, I tell them the questions that guide them to finish the task one step by one step.
Lunar: We have discussed about fear of failure and low self-efficacy, don't we?
Solar: Yes. Hopefully, these methods could help students to cope with procrastination.
Lunar: It wouldn't be necessary to discuss them again. Let's put paid to it. I wonder what kind of question did you ask about procrastination before your class?
Solar: When I stood in front of them at teaching platform, through the windows of eyes, I looked upon them, some procrastinated out of emotional regulation, some out of task aversiveness, some out of present bias, some out of fear of failure, and some out of low self-efficacy, asking of how many of you have ever felt ashamed of procrastination?
Lunar: How many of then have ever felt ashamed of procrastination?
Solar: Wow, all of them.
Lunar: You assigned them an essay, didn't you.
Solar: Yes.
Lunar: What kind of essay was it?
Solar: I assigned them an essay about the experience of procrastination. Ask yourself what caused you to procrastinate the task? When did you be reminded of the task? How did you feel about procrastination?
Lunar: May you please tell me some of your students' works?
Solar: I used to be a terrible novelist. It's so stressful to keep writing a hopeless novel, when I neither got paid, nor got audiences' attentions. I used to upload before bed, but one day I felt too tired to start writing one chapter. I thought I could wake up earlier, and finish the chapter on time. So I went to bed, leaving the task to the next day. I did wake up earlier, but I closed my eyes again, leaving the task until the last minute of the deadline. It's more than stressful, when I had to take yesterday's task and today's task in the same time. I think I won't like procrastination anymore. Miss Deadline.
Lunar: Miss Deadline admitted that she is a terrible novelist, didn't she?
Solar: Before AI could write novels, she had to be one of one hundred peers to get paid. After that, she has to be one of one thousand peers. When one writer could get paid with AI's help, one thousand would follow and crowd in the market.
Lunar: The next essay, please.
Solar: When one sits in his room, who cares about homework? I don't. I'd like to watch a movie first, and then watch the next movie. Unwittingly, it's already been at midnight. When I did one last check on homework, I realized I didn't even write anything on paper. Should I stay up late, or should I leave it tomorrow? I was gonna stay up late for writing homework, but my brain just shut down after being too tired. I should have finished my homework, before I could watch movies with no worries. Miss Procrastination.
Lunar: Miss Procrastination?
Solar: Miss Procrastination is the present-bias prisoner.
Lunar: The present-bias prisoner?
Solar: It's present bias that has caused her procrastination. She heavily discounts future benefits like a good grade in favor of a small immediate pleasure like watching movies.
Lunar: Had she finished her homework yet?
Solar: Yes. It's not a complex task, it's just a simple one. However, whether it's complex or it's simple, they always tend to procrastinate it until the last minute of the deadline.
Lunar: Had she procrastinated her homework again?
Solar: No. I think she has learned from her experience of procrastination, knowing life is about sweetness after bitterness.