The phrase “I was born late” literally applies to me. I was due on May 26, 1996, but I wasn’t born until 16 days later. Flash forward 19 years, and I’m still running late for everything. I consider myself to be a professional procrastinator. This applies to attending school, meeting deadlines, going to work, waking up, hanging out with friends and everything else under the sun. If it’s possible to be late to it, I will be. This is how I have always been and it’s really becoming a problem for me.

I don’t want to be a professional procrastinator forever, so I’ve been working on it. It isn’t something you can fix overnight, but it can be fixed eventually. I have a little advice for any of you procrastinators who may be struggling, too.

1. Create a routine and follow it.

I am the first person who will tell you how difficult it is to follow a routine. It is almost impossible. Almost. All you have to do is find certain times each day to do your normal daily activities. Step one is to pick a bedtime and make yourself go to bed at that time every night. Yes, there will be days when you just can’t make it to bed by that time because you have things going on. That’s OK. For the rest of the days, follow it. Then, wake up around the same time every day. This is also difficult and there will be days when sleeping in is needed. That is totally OK. Everybody needs a chill day, even those who have been successful in creating a routine and following it. The next step to creating a routine is eating around the same times every day. People say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but I think that every meal is very important. If you don’t have a routine for eating your meals every day, then you’ll have trouble following any other sort of routine.

The next step is the part that I dread the most and I’m sure many of you will relate. You need to pick a time that you will use for doing your homework or doing any other work that needs to be done. You may not need to make time for this every day. That depends on how often you have work that needs to be done. For me, I do my homework on certain days because of my work and school schedules. If you’re in college, it would probably work for you to only have certain days for homework. If you’re in high school or lower, then you will most likely need to make time every day. If you aren’t in school, then you should simply make time for other productive things, like cleaning or doing laundry.

2. Turn off the television.

My grandma always told me that I would get more work done if I would simply turn off the TV. I always rolled my eyes at her and kept the TV on because I didn’t want to give it up. Now, I realize that you get a lot more work done if you just turn off the TV and spend some time working on stuff. This also applies to your phone and all social media. Without the distraction, it is so much easier to focus on what you’re doing. Even having the television on for background noise will distract you from what you need to get done. It’s better if you just turn it off and do some work.

Plus, sometimes it is helpful to use TV as a reward. When you’ve done a certain amount of work, you can take a break and watch some TV. Now, that method only works if you use it correctly. Make sure to balance your work with the reward. If you only read a page, don’t let yourself watch an entire episode on Netflix. That is counterproductive. I speak from experience here. When you’re struggling through "The Scarlett Letter," it isn’t a good idea to only read a couple of pages before you turn on a full episode of "The Vampire Diaries." At least read a chapter or two. Otherwise, it’s suddenly midnight and you’ve read two chapters, but watched four episodes. Don’t let that happen to you!

3. Create goals for yourself.

This applies to even the simplest things. Getting up on time for school, getting an A on your exam, drinking water with every meal… It doesn’t matter what the goal is, it’s just important for you to make some. Once you have made some goals, you can start taking steps to reaching them. If you have an idea of things you want to get done, then you will be more likely to do something about it.

A really important part of making goals is figuring out what you need to do to meet them. If you want to wake up on time for school (or anything), then you should go to bed early, set an alarm for yourself and avoid pushing snooze. If you want to get an A on your exam, then you should take time for studying, go to bed on time and eat before you take the test. It can be as simple as going to bed on time or as complicated as practicing every day in order to win your game. Just make goals for yourself and push yourself to meet them.

4. Believe in yourself.

I know that sounds stupid, but it is really important. If you just accept that you are a late person, then you will always be a late person. If you accept that you only get things done when you’re working under a deadline, then you will always put things off until the last minute. It is an endless cycle that you will be stuck in until you decide to believe that you can get out of it. You just have to set your mind to it and you can do it. You can be on time. You can get your homework done on time. You can avoid staying up late the night before to finish a paper that is due.

Believe that you can stop procrastinating everything and you can. That’s all there really is to it. It's not about the things you do or the way you do it, it's about the mindset you have. You just need to get into the mindset that you CAN do it and that nothing can stop you. After you realize how much control you have over what you can do, then you can do anything.

From one procrastinator to another, I wish you all luck.