"student syndrome" refers to the phenomenon where a student will begin to fully apply themself to a task only immediately before a deadline. this negates the usefulness of any buffers built into individual task duration estimates. results from a 2002 study indicate that many students are aware of procrastination and accordingly set binding deadlines long before the date for which a task is due. these self-imposed binding deadlines are correlated with a better performance than without binding deadlines though performance is best for evenly spaced external binding deadlines. finally, students have difficulties optimally setting self-imposed deadlines, with results suggesting a lack of spacing before the date at which results are due.