I’ve been having major deadlines these past few weeks and no matter how much I spend planning, creating outlines, thinking about it for weeks, I’m usually still up late into the night hurriedly finishing. Which you know, it’s just a way my mind works; I have been forever wired to procrastinate and therefore work under pressure of impending deadlines.

The other day, I had a 7-page essay due the next day. But however much I kept telling myself you gotta work on this Shaylee, you literally only have 8 hours to finish, I still ended up staring at my mostly-blank Word doc until 3 in the morning (which is bad I know…). But the important thing is that I finished it (in which I literally had no choice in the matter…)! So below are ways that I tried to get over my writer’s block (that has been going on for a couple of weeks)...and will most likely be repeated the next time I have a writing deadline.

Make an outline/do other work

Before working on an essay, I make sure to write an extensive outline, pretty much word vomit on a google doc, with appropriate links, thesis, counterarguments (y’know when it’s one of those essays), and the like. This is where I contain all my mistakes (or at least hopefully all of them) since I pretty much hate going back and reading my work (because c’mon, I already know what my essay is about).

Also, side note, if you’re like me and hate reading their work again and editing it, have Word (or another word processor) read it back to you. It’s usually an extra feature that you can add to your word processor that’s completely free. Although it is read back to you in a robotic, boring voice, it’s pretty helpful for catching mistakes. BUT that’s not to say that you shouldn’t read your work at least once (even I do it, however much it irks me).

If you finish your outline but you’re still staying at that bright, blank Word screen, go ahead and do other work (because we all know that this essay is not the only thing you’ve been procrastinating on).

Watch Youtube for a while until you can think of something

This is pretty much what I did ‘til 3 in the morning. Which is bad, I’m not saying it’s not, but it does let your mind wander a bit and not have you panicking over still having only 200 of the ~1500 word limit.

Try watching small videos (less than 10 minutes), even if you end up watching a bunch. Don’t go and watch this hour-long documentary ‘cause then you’re going to be thinking of that instead of the topic of your essay.

Destress- indulge yourself

I like to pride myself on the fact that although I do procrastinate, I am a productive procrastinator. I end up cleaning my room, painting my nails, putting on a face mask, catching up on the news, doing other work, etc. Pretty much everything but writing my essay (or whatever writing deadline is due). Either way, you’re still being productive.

Sleep on it

By the time it was 3 am, I decided that I could not think of anything that was worth putting in my essay. So might as well get some sleep, right? Which I did. I set my alarm to 6 am and went to sleep, hopefully with some ideas on what to put down in my essay.

Which ultimately worked, but let’s just say that I didn’t wake up at 6 am….

Write it in the last 4 hrs before it’s due

So picture this: there I am, after snoozing my alarm multiple times (my roommate can attest), finally getting up at around 8 am and furiously typing on my laptop, trying to reach the page limit. If I’m being completely honest, it was a pretty damn good essay. I got all my points across, used all my sources that were in my outline, and finished with a bit more than an hour to spare (which gave me time to edit).

Overall, the moral of this, be like me (a master procrastinator) or don’t. If you work well under pressure and often find yourself scrambling to write a paper but still end up doing pretty well, then you’ll see yourself in the above scenario. If not, then wow don’t you live a good life of not having to constantly leave everything ‘til the last second. Either way, I like to live with the philosophy that it all works out in the end.