Most students, at one time or another in their college careers, have academic problems because they fail to complete work on time. A chronic procrastinator never studies until the night before an exam, and puts off writing papers until just before they are due. As a result, the student is always behind and always struggling to catch up.
Procrastination interferes with academic performance in several ways.
One problem is that term papers written the night before they are due are typically of poor quality. Writing effective papers requires some time for digestion and reconsideration of ideas and for careful revision of sentence structure, usage, and grammar. Sometimes the student gets a good grade on a paper written the night before, but few students are able to carry this off consistently. A second problem with procrastination is that it results in poor performance on exams. Research on studying techniques shows clearly that cramming the night before an exam does not work nearly so well as studying for short periods every day or so.