Don't procrastinate. Don't choose teammates who procrastinate. If you can't choose your own partners and you're assigned someone who procrastinates, volunteer to do a greater share of the work yourself, or nag them relentlessly so you don't have to wait until the last possible hour to finish merging everything together and write the final section that can't be completed until everyone else submits their work. And in case you think it's fun to be printing out your report 15 minutes before class is set to begin, it is not nearly as pleasurable as you might expect, and it's worthwhile to remember that printers are known to balk at the hour of greatest need. Maintaining regular communication and having an easy way to share your work (such as Google Docs) makes life easier, too.

This is exactly the scenario that happened to me yesterday when one of my summer classes was wrapping up. Everything turned out OK in the end, but I feel compelled to issue another stern injunction to the universe that...

PROCRASTINATION IS BAD

Procrastination also makes cute, innocent puppies cry. You certainly don't want to upset cute, innocent puppies, so don't procrastinate.
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Edited by: Bibby, Jun 28th, 2013 @ 10:42 pm

This has been a message from your local neighborhood Admin, and all around cool guy: Bibby


Anyway,
Yeah, procrastination only leads to things not being done on time, and all around suckness when it IS time to submit what it is you are working on.

Made even worse when on a team, and your team mates are the ones procrastinating, leaving you to do all the work.

also, never hold off four papers til two weeks before they're due

i had to write a six page paper in six hours last semester because i did this

I feel a more appropriate solution than nagging at them is to find the cause of why they're procrastinating in the first place. Sometimes it can be as simple as them not caring for the project, in which case there isn't much you can do (though you can entice them with something like, I dunno, a trip to the pub afterwards), but it could also be due to a genuine problem that you can help them with. I know I sometimes procrastinate because I get anxious about things, even when I'm really passionate about whatever I'm working on.

It's not your responsibility to do more work, plus having 'heroes' in group projects hardly ever goes down well. It's totally fine to do more work if a team member needs time to sort out issues (illness, death in the family, etc) but don't justify it just because somebody isn't pulling their weight.

Always do self reward to prevent procrastination. And that's how I got stuffs done quick.

Fanta: Yeah, that's true. By keeping communication channels open, you're less likely to run into problems like this. In this particular case, however, several sections were incomplete just a few hours before the project was due, so we had no choice but to perform some tasks assigned to other teammates.

Yeah, that happens sometimes. I guess the best you can do is learn from the experience and improve your communication processes accordingly.



This never works for me because I know I can still give myself the reward even if I don't complete the work.

However, betting money with friends/family works a charm because they will take your money and mock you if you don't complete it in time. Trying to avoid that is a pretty strong motivator, haha.

Yeah, that happens sometimes. I guess the best you can do is learn from the experience and improve your communication processes accordingly.



This never works for me because I know I can still give myself the reward even if I don't complete the work.

However, betting money with friends/family works a charm because they will take your money and mock you if you don't complete it in time. Trying to avoid that is a pretty strong motivator, haha.