It's that time of year again... that time of year when all sorts of listicle sites put out listicles on the stages of writing a paper, studying for finals, all sorts of other things you are procrastinating on by reading this silly article. So sit back, relax, and let the procrastination take you away.

Stage 1: Stare at the computer screen until an idea magically comes to you.

Stage 2: Still more staring.

Stage 3: Try not to fall asleep on your computer while waiting for an idea to magically come to you.

Stage 4: Actually come up with an idea! The best idea ever!

Stage 5: Realize you have absolutely no clue how to code your idea and go back to staring at screen.

Stage 6: Lower your standards enough that any stupid idea now seems good enough for you. A Spam eating centipede-worm thingy? Uh, guess that will do.

Stage 7: Start coding. Even if it's just a function printing the word "yikes."

Stage 8: Realize that there is a bug somewhere in your code and debug.

Stage 9: Spend five hours debugging since absolutely nothing works, only to realize you forgot a semi-colon.

Stage 10: Get so angry with your computer you briefly consider eating it.

Stage 11: You know, you haven't done enough debugging yet. It might be fun to spend hours looking for another tiny bug.

Stage 12: Briefly consider giving up on your project, computer science, and maybe even school in general.

Stage 13: Wait, stuff actually works?

Stage 14: Realizing that sure, your code compiled, but when you actually run the code, whoops, runtime error.

Stage 15: Try again and... it works! It really, actually works!

Stage 16: Realize that you were just being melodramatic since all that work really only took a few hours, so maybe yes, you can still do this.