If you are as hard-headed as I am, most things you have to learn the hard way. Even though people try and warn me and steer me in the right direction, of course it takes my attempting and miserably failing at something in order for me to never do it again. We are about a month into freshmen year and a lesson that I have already learned about is procrastination.
Now you may be thinking… duh? Of course you don’t procrastinate in college; this is like real life. Yeah, yeah, I get it. But I am not talking about waiting 'til the very last minute to do homework necessarily, well sort of. I am referring more to poor time management skills. When you think you have no homework or think it will only take you an hour to do, and you turn out to be just so wrong and end up working for six days on an assignment. Time management is a skill you have to pick up QUICK if you want to make it all four, or more, years of school.
Procrastination is not a thing in college. Let me explain. I used to love in high school when a teacher would challenge me with the phrase “this is not something you can do the night before." I heard this and thought, oh honey, don’t underestimate me. But in college they don’t even bother challenging you because they know you will fail. And quite frankly, here they don’t care if you do. That’s what I mean by saying it’s not a thing. You literally cannot wait until the last minute to do anything without royally screwing up.
Poor time management also affects your free time. Part of the college experience is going out and meeting new people and making friendships that last a lifetime. Yeah, well don’t expect to be doing any of this if your stuff isn’t done. I have a habit of napping so hard after a full day of classes that by the time I start my homework it’s already around 5 pm. In high school this was great; I still have five hours to do homework and go to bed at a decent hour. In college this is terrifying. Waking up after a nap realizing you have nothing done…. It’s time to grab the coffee because you’ll be up a while.
The main reason I think having time management skills is so important is because you want to avoid becoming a workaholic. Yes, school comes first and that’s the reason you are at college in the first place, but all work and no play is enough to drive anyone absolutely insane. Having a plan tackling it and avoiding waiting to the last minute is a way to ensure you still get to enjoy the fun part of college. Better yet, here is a better incentive to staying ahead: If you are, let’s say, two days ahead on your homework, that’s equivalent to like four more episodes you can watch on Netflix. How can you pass that up?
