Procrastination is a writer’s worst sin. It relates not only to students postponing the submission of their homework until the last evening. Writers, scientists, and many other people who need to perform some work before the set deadline can fall prey to procrastination, focusing on many activities except for the one that is due soon.
Procrastination always has a high price; workers postponing important presentations or reports and completing them with mediocre quality on the last night may be fired, while students usually get low grades for the mediocre writings. These grave consequences hint at the need to combat this evil characteristic as soon as possible. Here we have prepared some workable tips to avoid procrastination and develop the habit of doing everything on time.
Engage in Freewriting
The most basic reason for procrastination is a lack of ideas. Once you sit down to write something and can’t find ideas at once, you may drop the assignment and shift to something more manageable or unrelated. But here is the catch: the more you postpone the brainstorming process, the more you risk writing nothing at all.
A good way out of the creativity crisis is to free-write. Take a sheet of paper and set a timer for 5-10 minutes. Please don’t bother about grammar or style; it’s only the process that matters. After the timer goes off, study the list of ideas that your brain issued and proceed with one of them. The key to freewriting effectiveness is to do some prior research so that your brain has at least some background knowledge on the subject. Leave the rest to your mind.
Set Time Limits
As with the freewriting activity, the whole assignment completion process usually takes as much time as you reserve for it. So, no matter whether you have five days or five hours to complete an essay. You’ll work exactly the amount of time you have. Then why give yourself five days if you can limit this task’s completion to five hours and dedicate the rest to more meaningful activities?
That’s where setting exact limits helps. Give yourself a realistic (yet minimal) amount of time for the task. You’ll see how quickly your brain will activate to perform the task instead of going in circles and procrastinating for days, knowing that you still have time.
Go Out and Do Sports
Nothing helps your brain concentrate better than a short workout. While you’re working physically, your brain takes a break and starts working much better on the intellectual tasks. The most optimal breakdown is to do some research to generate ideas for the writing piece, then do some workout to let your brain switch and systematize the obtained information, and then proceed to the actual writing stage. You’ll see how quickly the result will come out a truly fascinating skill of our mind!
Be Creative
Creativity will save the world. This statement relates to writing perfectly, as writers who follow the well-trodden paths usually do nothing better than repeating the trivialities wrote by others before. Being creative in writing means taking a new route, taking a new glance at the well-known facts, and exploring some new suggestions. You’ll see how engaging this creativity can be, completing an essay in record time.
Reserve a Place for Work
Having a quiet place that your brain associates with productivity is a must for a person prone to procrastination. So, as soon as you realize, OK, now I need to go and rewrite my essay, you should choose a place where the plan will be implemented quickly. It may be a library a place with a spirit of studies and research, a room in your apartment, a coffee shop, or a verandah with a pleasant view of the mountain landscape. Anything that inspires you and sets you in the productive mode will do.
All great writers emphasize the need to have such a haven to quickly and productively manage the writing work. Stephen King wrote much about such a place, pointing out that his study is his secret to productivity as the world’s most fruitful nightmare writer. So, you can also find a place for tedious, undistracted work, thus minimizing the time spent on homework.
Learn the Art of Delegation
What can you do if procrastination remains? Don’t panic! It’s still not a good reason to receive low grades and drop out of college. A wise solution is to seek help when you realize you’re badly late with an assignment. In this case you may hire a writer from a competent research agency and secure a high grade for yourself. Probably you need some more time to eradicate procrastination in your mindset.
Combat Distractions
We live in the era of distractions, with TV, YouTube, email, and social media competing for our time and attention. Those who don’t oust the distractions for their writing sessions risk spending 3 to 5 times more time writing. Compare the time you spend on an essay when you have your smartphone next to you and when the smartphone is away. You’ll be stunned by the difference!
I’m a 20-something stay-at-home mother and wife. I have an amazing husband, a beautiful daughter, two loving dogs, and a lazy cat. I wouldn’t change my life for anything! I love to read, listen to music, cook and blog!
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