"Mañana" Filipino’s Bad Habit
Filipinos notable “mañana habit” a term that short for “mamaya na” or in English translation Later. Most people tend to say I’ll do it later, tomorrow, or don’t have a specific time when you can do it now and some forget to do a thing for always saying later. It is another term for procrastination, a barrier that will prevent a person to make little progress. For example, a teacher gave a project that will due two weeks from now, I knew that the deadline will be far from now, instead of doing it early like what the teacher told, I wasted my time doing nothing to my cellphone, checking social media notification until the due date of the project is a day after tomorrow. I will rush everything just to pass on time or worse late than the set time. We can’t deny the fact that sometimes, we blame the teacher for letting us do a lot of things when in fact it’s our fault that we wasted the given time on unworthy things. We will rant and sometimes say a word that is not good to hear just to blame the education system, it’s one of our defense mechanisms to avoid blaming ourselves and play as a “victim”. If it’s not about being lazy then, what is it? It is the major factor why sometimes we fail, we tend to delay things to happen early as we can and let the time pass by us without doing anything.
This habit is a negative trait that we have, we must free ourselves to mañana habit enables for us to succeed and not “mamaya na”. If you connect it to procrastination you will see that there is no difference for both terms. It refers to practice (because it’s a habit) of putting down the hard works to be done the next time until one doesn’t have any choice but to do it.
Why it’s so hard to prevent this habit? Maybe because we found the work as a boring one, it’s not what we want to do, just by thinking of it you found yourself tired, even you know that it is important. We failed to manage our time, energy, and attention. According to research, the effect of the mañana habit is “People get sluggish sometimes that they tend to put off some tasks that could've or should have done right away. It's been a habit for most Filipinos that usually lead to cramming, where one would just start working when the deadline is near or will be on the following day.” There is a distraction why most Filipino commit this habit, for example, if you are studying but you found that subject hard, boring because you don’t have energy and it’s not your favorite subject. You took a break and think to check your phone just for five minutes, you are consuming time and it entertains you and forgot that you are studying. You realized that it gives you stress that’s why you just scroll but worse is you didn’t follow the plan that you set and will say “ahh, the deadline is far from now, there is always a later. Once you break the plan, it will continue without realizing that you lose your time.
What’s stopping you to do a task as early as you can? Laziness, cell phone? Do you need someone to motivate you? How about your dream? Isn’t it enough to make your path towards it? The mamaya na habit is a goal/dream killer because it prevents you to start what you have planned. To achieve a dream, you must start to take baby steps. Little progress is still progress. Make today your day one. Do it for yourself and say, “No more excuses.” – Rappler
These are some ways to Fix mañana habit :
• Set a goal
-Think of a most important task that you need to do
• Make a Plan
-Takedown that task and start preparing. As much as possible put your phones away from you if you are going to start.
• Get to work
-Start the task, focus, and stay away from any distraction
• Stick to it
-If you felt tired take a break and refresh your mind then continue
• Reach your Goal
-If ever you have done it without giving up, Congratulations you made it, and keep it out. Reward yourself.
You can also use the Pomodoro Technique It says here to focus on studying, learning, and doing important things in 25 minutes and take a break for 5 minutes. This technique is proven helpful especially to students like me.
What are you still waiting for? Go and improve your days. It will be the path to reach the goal you had set. Success will not wait for you. Struggle and hard work now, and enjoy later.
