You know that feeling. There was a task that you were supposed to do a long time ago. But you were constantly postponing collecting the information for your research or preparing for your exam. There is always something to do instead of prep. And no, you’re not being interrupted by something important from the outside. You just feel more like doing something else.
And now you’re working hard, while running out of time, trying to finish your task by the deadline. And you’re beating yourself up over not doing it beforehand. Still, you stay distracted by listening to various podcasts. Or, all of a sudden, you decide to take a break to clean up your room or wash the dishes. All in all, you’re trying to do whatever you can except that task which needs to be done.
Well, congratulations, that’s procrastination! A lot of people confuse procrastination with laziness, but those are totally different things. Laziness is rooted in apathy, lack of desire to do something, and inactivity in general. Thus, it’s a passive thing. Procrastination, on the contrary, is an active process. You choose to do anything else but doing something with burning deadlines.
While you can always request help by paper writer, and never bother about your essays again, procrastination affects different aspects of your life. Solving the problem with paper writing won’t clear out other issues related to your delaying tactics. And procrastination may negatively impact not only your college life but your work as well.
If you want to start doing everything on time and learn to balance your studying, work, and leisure, you should check out the following tips that will help you in your fight against wasting time.
1. Acknowledge Your Procrastination
One of the main reasons why we cannot solve certain issues is that we refuse to acknowledge the problem. You may use different excuses to justify delaying important things because you have other important things to do.
And it’s okay to postpone doing your research when something that you didn’t see coming hits you hard. Once. If you’re holding up things on a regular basis, then you are procrastinating. You need to acknowledge it to fight it. And then not postpone dealing with it. You know you want to.
2. Figure Out the Reason
After acknowledging the problem, you need to find the reasons behind it. Writing a research paper can be an actual bore while preparing for the exam can be quite stressful. Avoiding boredom and stress is normal. But if those are the causes of your procrastination, there are several things that you can do about it.
If you want to avoid boredom, while writing your paper you can either find the ways to get it done as soon as possible, or you can think about the aspects of it that are enjoyable for you. After all, you’re processing a lot of information to transform it into a finished product. That’s something that deserves recognition.
If you’re afraid of the stress of exam preparation, think that after going through all of it, you will be able to pass it without any problems. Actually, there’s nothing to worry about at all, but we are going to talk about it in detail later.
3. Get Rid of Distractions
Quite often we try to fool ourselves. We may think that preparing for an exam while at your friend’s place is a good idea. We may consider writing the paper while watching your favorite TV series. Well, let’s be honest, that is possible only if you’re a prodigy and extremely good at multitasking. Otherwise, it won’t work. Most likely you won’t get any joy from the party/TV show, and your paper won’t be ready.
4. Set Deadlines Yourself
Considering the previous situation, you can go with a different scenario. How about setting your personal deadlines that will allow you to write your paper beforehand, and you would be able to go to the party without being haunted by the idea that you haven’t finished something? Just make the first draft of your paper, you will be able to polish it after the party. But the first draft must be ready.
Now, let’s consider your preparation for the exam. You cannot learn everything one night before the test. How about creating the to-do lists for the day? And put each topic that may pop up on your exam to that list? Just devote an hour or two every day to each topic, and you will prepare with ease.
5. State of Efficiency
Each of us has the time when we’re the most efficient. That’s the time that you should devote to your studies. If it happens so that you’re most efficient during night hours, use them to write your paper. If you prefer waking up early in the morning, and you feel most efficient from, let’s say 4 am to 10 am, use this time frame for preparing for the exam. Utilize your state of efficiency.
6. Avoid Stressing Out
We often get anxious just thinking how much time a task can take. And the anxiety brings demotivation. And when you’re demotivated, you would rather spend your time on anything else, except that task. But you should avoid stressing too much about it. Consider several scenarios of what may happen if you succeed or fail at that particular task.
If you fail to finish your paper on time, most likely you will be asked to submit it when it is ready. Yep, that can affect your score, but is it such a big deal? Not really. If you fail your exam, you can retake it. Again, it will affect your grades, but will someone die because of that? No. Nothing really will happen to you.
This attitude is not to make you forget about the pending tasks, but it will help you to take them easy. And things can be done way easier when you don’t think of them as some big obstacle in your life. It’s just another paper you need to finish. It’s just another exam you need to pass. Nothing serious.
7. Ask for Help
Another thing that you need to remember is to never be ashamed of asking for help. It will save you time, and save your nerves as well. Ask your peers who have had similar assignments for advice. Someone may share their tips for writing a research, while those who made similar research can share their notes with you. You can even ask your professors to shed some light on what to do.
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