Axel Polu: Breaking the Cycle

Axel Polu shares how he overcame procrastination.

Every Sunday, I go through the same routine, telling myself all day that “soon” I’ll get started on my homework. Soon may be in five minutes, or after this TV episode, or tomorrow morning.

Yet when the moment finally comes, magically another excuse pops into my head, hoping to hold on to the comfort of complacence for a little longer. Eventually, procrastination became my routine, extending to all responsibilities big or small.

On one Sunday recently I had once again waited until the last minute to do my homework. Except now I couldn’t snap out of it, I was consumed with my own procrastination. My dad, who placed great importance on grades, asked “Do you have any homework tonight son?” He said subtly, trying to remind me. “Yeah” I replied, “but I think I might skip this one. I mean one homework assignment isn’t going to make or break my grade.”

“Well,” my dad replied, “sure, maybe some of your assignments may not directly impact your grade, but the real hit you take by not doing your homework is the halt in consistency. For instance, imagine a boy with a clean room. Now every day he ignores the small pile up, trying to escape his responsibility of cleaning. Finally, he cleans his room, but nonetheless this cycle repeats.

And eventually procrastination becomes more than just a habit and spreads to all parts of his life, even doing his homework. Now imagine if the boy were to clean the little mess he creates every day. This way, his room never becomes a problem because of his consistency, keeping it clean.”

With the new viewpoint, I finally sat down at my desk without waiting for “soon.” Making the choice to clean up the mess before it built up, and although the large stack of homework waiting for me wasn’t completed in a day, I broke the cycle of procrastination instead of feeding into it. So, moving forward, I understood that change doesn’t happen all at once, it happens marginally. However soon enough, your progress will exceed that of what you imagined. With a Perspective, I’m Axel Polu.

Axel Polu is a Bay Area high school student. He loves all things reading and writing.