• Because of procrastination, she has not finished her thesis project to get her engineering diploma.
• She has left her thesis project behind because she is insecure on how to start and she is afraid to mess up.
• She rather spends time hanging out with friends or take dance classes than finishing her thesis project.
• She needs to get a better organization to set up a specific amount of time apart from her job and social life to finish her thesis project.
INTERVIEW GUIDE
Warm Up
• Thank you for participating
• Intro to project
-School project
-Driven by curiosity on how to avoid procrastination
• Expectations
• Timeframe ( 30 minutes)
• Able to leave at any time
• Answer only questions that are comfortable
• No right or wrong answers
• Permission to record ( start recording)
Overview
Look for: type project, how long it took to meet deadlines, feelings by not meeting deadlines, awareness of how consistent a person procrastinates
• Get basic info on procrastination
• Recent experience
-Tell me about the last time you procrastinated?
-What was the project about?
-How did you choose to avoid procrastination?
• Feelings
-What prevents you from meeting deadlines?
-How do you feel when not meeting deadlines?
-How are you meeting your deadlines?
-What do you feel responsible for when thinking about procrastination?
-How does procrastination affect your life?
• Organization
-Tell me which type of project do you prefer to do first?
-Tell me which type of project you prefer to leave for last minute?
-How do you choose the order of your assignments?
• Time
-How long do you usually last doing one project?
-How do you manage the amount of time you spend doing one project?
-What tools do you use to organize your time?
-How is procrastination a big part of your life?
-How are your time management skills?
• Distractions
-What are the ways that you get distracted?
-What do you do to avoid these distractions?
• Final thoughts
-What are you currently doing to reach your goals?
-What would you change your habits to meet your goals?
-Why is ending procrastination important to you?
-Why is meeting deadlines important to you?
Wrap up
• Give opportunity to share other thoughts
• Thank for time and insight
INTERVIEW NOTES
These people were chosen because they struggle with procrastination and they don't know how to achieve their goals. Most of them are students or currently working. Some have short-term goals, and others have long-term but all of them need a solution to procrastination to achieve their goals.
Dione 35
Stylist
• She gets very motivated to work when she is assigned to style a person but she does not enjoy doing product styling so she leaves those for last minute.
• She uses sticky notes on her Mac to know the assignments that she has for the day.
• She feels that she does not have enough time to
do her own photo shoots to build up her portfolio
and look for a better job.
• She will like to have her own business but she does not know how to organize herself to start creating
her own brand.
Alejandra 27
Producer at Viacom
• She has a journal where she tries to organize her job assignments but she does not leave time to spend it with friends or family.
• She does not spend quality time with her boyfriend because she does not manage her time well and she has to keep working even when she gets home.
• She feels overwhelmed by her lack of time management skills.
• She is looking for ways to not put too much pressure on herself and enjoy her career as much as she can.
Camila 21
Journalism Student
• Does not understand why she spends so much time watching Netflix shows that she has previously watched.
• Even though she gets distracted she is a great student, but she feels guilty for being a perfectionist. She gets frustrated and stresses if she does not get an A.
• She makes a to-do list every morning in a notebook, but she feels is not enough for her to get organized.
• She wants to stop getting distracted with Netflix because she does not like to feel stress out or guilty for leaving her assignments to last minute.
Andrea 23
Environmental Engineer
How do people avoid procrastination?
Aaron 25
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Franco 30
Carla 38
MPT Student
Opera Singer
Graphic Designer /Marketing
• She will like not to be on her phone looking at social media and spend more time with her children.
• Technology has taken over her family because even her children age 8 -10 have phones and there is a lack of communication between the members of the family.
• At her job, she feels that she works better under pressure that’s why she leaves everything for last minute but she says that it causes stress which makes her have a bad mood when she gets home.
• She feels that her whole family needs a better organization to not spend too much time on their phone and be more productive during their day.
• He cannot start doing his school work if his room
is not organized first.
• He gets easily distracted if the area where he is working is messy, that's why he prefers going to the labs or the library to do homework.
• He has only 2 classes this semester and only on Wednesdays so he leaves all his work for Tuesday.
• He gets frustrated by leaving everything for last minute but he does not know how to manage his social life and his school work.
• He spends all day practicing his areas of opera but he does not know how to make time for others things.
• He eats the same meal every day because he says that he does not time to make better meals.
• He stopped going to the gym because he did not want to get out of his house to get distracted by other things that were not related to opera.
• He is very hard working person but he wants to know how to organize himself so he can also have a decent social life and not only focus on his music.
Book Author
Katherine 32
• She just quit her job at Google to become a children's book author.
• She just finished her book and took her more time than she thought because she did not have good time management skills.
• Since she is her own boss she gets distracted very easily and starts delaying the day that she is supposed to start promoting her book.
• She will like someone to help her set up a schedule so she can have a list of places and the days where she could promote her book.
RESEARCH INSIGHTS
1. Everyone experiences a mix of emotions when procrastinating, first people feel relax and satisfy when doing something besides their assignments, but once they realize how much work they have to do, stress and guilt start to raise up.
2. People get distracted and that slow their process to finish what they have to do on time.
3. People wish they have better time management skills and are more organization to achieve their goals.
4. People need the motivation to stay on track with their goals.
5. People appreciate when their friends help them to keep their goals in mind.
6. People often try to make a to-do list and use their calendar.
7. People don't get enough sleep when they leave the things that they have to do for last minute.
8. People face constant stress and frustrations for not knowing how to stop procrastination.
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Problems that your target users experience.
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Values that are important to your target users.