A short course may end last-minute rushing before a deadline

The study

1. 01

   Who took part

   96 university students in Germany, average age about 24. About half were women. Only 45 people finished the diaries, so the results rest on them.

2. 02

   What they did

   Both groups had a 4-hour course in small groups. For about two hours, the practice group practised planning, cutting tasks into steps and making if-then plans. The talk group talked about its time-management problems instead. Over four weeks, everyone wrote down daily how long they spent on a task they had picked.

3. 03

   What happened

   In the last week before the deadline, the talk group logged 1,526 minutes, against 1,035 for the practice group. Over all four weeks, the two groups logged about the same total, 3,562 and 3,353 minutes. More than half dropped out, and the paper's numbers don't fully add up.

What the study found

1. HelpedProcrastination

   Students who practised planning spread their work, but students who only talked worked hardest near the deadline.

   • Action: Make an if-then plan for your obstacletested
   • Action: Split a big task into piecestested
   • Rule: Practise with a groupused

   Small randomised trial of 96 German university students · vs students who only talked about their problems · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ only counted people who finished; many people dropped out; numbers unreliable; summary claims more than the results show

2. No differenceGoals

   Over four weeks, both groups logged about the same total time, so the training changed when people worked.

   • Action: Make an if-then plan for your obstacletested
   • Action: Split a big task into piecestested
   • Rule: Practise with a groupused

   Small randomised trial of 96 German university students · vs students who only talked about their problems · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ only counted people who finished; many people dropped out; numbers unreliable; summary claims more than the results show

Source