Putting things off is problem number one for many students regardless of their study level. Some people let it grow to dimensions causing great problems. If the tendency to supersede duties and tasks is noticeable and chronic, we are speaking about procrastination. Especially people who have no external pressure to meet their obligations and are allowed to organize their time freely and in accordance with their own wishes suffer from this syndrome. That is why there are mostly university students. The research survey carried out by the psychologist Roman Gabrhelík has revealed that over forty percent out of all Czech university students are hard hit by this problem. If compared with people who do their work soon enough, those who chronically put off their duties are less efficient and make more mistakes which always results in stress. Besides this, the consequences of not meeting a deadline must always be taken into account - e.g. repeating the year of study or expulsion from studies

What can all the procrastination result in?

• Worrying about failure

Fright or better to say a fear from the affects our behaviour in a large extent. Fear saps our energy and often does not allow us to realize our dreams and ideas. If you are worried about failure, you repeatedly come back to a given task checking its solution or you revise it again and again, or perhaps do not even tackle it.

• Worrying about success

A successfully completed activity quite naturally raises the question of searching (or solving) for another activity. A person permanently seeks reasons for the possibility to dwell on something. A person takes voluntarily useless tasks bringing nothing about and works on them just to work.

• Worrying about conflict

Sometimes you must deal with people you would better avoid. You keep putting off the negotiations, you instinctively look for other activities - and finally you discover that you are up to your neck in problems. Another time you are afraid that this activity will not allow you to turn to another activity which you would surely prefer. In both cases the brains immediately start to seek excuses for why not to start with this activity.

• Worrying about evaluation

In case a person works in a group or with a group, he/she is often influenced by the others' opinions. You are afraid of how your decisions will be judged, how the solutions of problems you suggest will be accepted, you would like to know, how your performance will be appreciated. All these factors offer you an excuse to speculate about "what the others will say about it" instead of solving the problem.

• Worrying about the unknown

This sort of fear accompanies all other above mentioned fears. In case we are afraid of the unknown, we very often work slowly and keep running away from the work. We try to get ourselves to believe that we are feeling splendid because we do not know how we will be feeling in a moment. That is why we take small, completely unimportant tasks - just not to leave a place where we are feeling well.

• Perfectionism

Instead of an effective worker you are becoming a stickler drowning in nearly unimportant details. Instead of distaste to working you - on the contrary - work hard to finally find out that the solution you have adapted is still not in accordance with your vision and your demands. This will not push you nearer to the set objective neither will it offer you a glow of satisfaction of a task well done as it offers only results which are never good enough.

• Under-evaluating oneself

A person usually under-evaluating him/herself usually loses also his/her self -confidence. And what´s more, it could be difficult for him/her to accept praise. The problem is that if you under-evaluate yourself for a long period of time, you will really think you are not able to be successful. Thus, under-evaluating oneself results in procrastination because a person who is not able to accept success will avoid it.

• Too much planning

Planning is important, however, putting things off is risky, because in such case you mull over how to deal with a matter instead of really dealing with it.

• Boredom - uninteresting tasks

A person most frequently postpones his/her task when it does not satisfy him/her. To avoid postponing the tasks, try to find something creative in it. If you do not manage to do so, try to reward yourself with a creative work after fulfilling a task..

• Difficult and time consuming tasks

A task seems to be too difficult for you to cope with. It can also take too much time which you do not have in the foreseeable future. That is why you postpone the task and devote yourself to easier ones.

• The lack of sources, skills and knowledge

Sometimes we do not feel like working because we realize that we have not enough materials, experience, knowledge, proficiency, staff or time needed. There is an easy solution: try to get everything before you find yourself in a whirl of delayed tasks and excuses.

• ILL-defined aims

If you are not clear in what you want to do and what you want to achieve, you will not even feel like starting. And what´s more, if you are not clear either about your common everyday tasks or tasks directing your own life, you will spend your time on minor activities - just not to be forced into throw yourself into such important life- changing activities.

• Habits passed down from the childhood

The last factor is bad practices from childhood when we find out that besides duties there are more interesting things.

What does procrastination strengthen?

Procrastination strengthens every postponement and a negative attitude to every task. Every time you postpone a task which you do not like you:

1. strengthen the habit of postponement
2. strengthen the habit of avoiding completion
3. avoid training to achieve an objective
4. develop fears about fulfillment

Participating actively in anything will help us acquire a positive attitude to a given activity while - on the contrary - the non-activity will strengthen our negative attitude. As soon as a person gets used to postponing his/her tasks to the last minute, or even to deliver them after the deadline, he/she is asking for trouble when things are getting serious, whether it be during  studies or later on at work.