I'm that student. The one who submits their assignments at the last minute and who waits until the night before the due date to get started on writing a paper. I never thought I'd be that person, but college has turned me into a monster—one that’s less frightening in the eery shadows of the well-caffeinated night than in the crisp light of a sleep-deprived morning after spending too many late hours tortured over homework assignments.

I would often tell myself that this late start/late night habit was not such a bad thing. Yeah, I lose a couple hours of sleep once in a while, but I always get my assignments done on time and I do very well on them; maybe this “bad” habit is actually a good thing! It must simply be true then—I work better under pressure. It's not for everyone and it's great that some students need an early start, but Crunch Time works well for me.

Except that it doesn't. I was wrong, and secretly I knew it. I was right about one thing though, working under pressure isn't for everyone. In fact, it isn't for anyone. But when we say we work better under pressure, we should be clear about what we really mean by the term “better.” By “better” do we mean to say we work “more efficiently?” That's certainly true. When you have to write a five page paper in four hours, you suddenly become a pro at focused organization and time management (at least during those short four hours anyway…). Or do we mean our performance is at a higher quality when we’re rushing to reach a deadline? According to Dr. Tim Pychyl, professor of Psychology at Carleton University who specializes in procrastination, our performance consistently suffers when we avoid tasks until the last minute. After turning in that hasty five page paper, did you think, “I'm really glad I waited so long to write that paper. It would have been a terrible paper if I distributed my writing time throughout the past two weeks and put more planning into it. Dodged a bullet there!” Or did you actually think something more like, “I wish I could've given more time to that paper. It seemed like it could've been a really interesting topic if I had the time to structure it differently”? I know I used to think the latter all the time, and even as a procrastinator-in-recovery, I still constantly regret not spending more time developing interesting ideas for written assignments.

Okay, so maybe you already knew that Crunch Time doesn't tend to produce high quality material. But let's go back to the former definition of “better.” I’ve never waited until last minute to finish an assignment because I thought my mind was sharper or more creative at 11 o’clock at night—far from it! I would only procrastinate so much because I needed the motivation to start my task and keep going until I finished. The stress of meeting the tight deadline provided me with that motivation. And that's exactly it! The answer to the question, “Why do we work better—or more efficiently—under pressure?” is because we need the motivation that stress gives us. But it's also more than this. When we think about the task in front of us, we focus on the most difficult aspects of it and the task becomes increasingly daunting, so we put it off—we procrastinate. Procrastination, of course, is when we engage in other activities that are more rewarding than the assignment we dread. We procrastinate because we want to avoid the punishment of writing a paper we’re not so crazy about. So it again comes down to a lack of motivation. Homework just isn't exciting enough to get us going and to keep us going (who would've thought?).

But you are not alone, my friend. As I mentioned earlier, I too am a recovering procrastinator, and it may come as no surprise that everyone procrastinates now and then and we’ll never kick the habit completely. However, there are a few ways to be more productive and produce better work—work that is a true reflection of your abilities and not just something thrown together last minute. As with many things, the first step is to admit the problem. Working under pressure doesn't help you, or me, or anyone. Saying that we work better under pressure is merely a rationalization of behavior that we know isn't great.

Next, we need to find ways to stay motivated. One suggestion is to create rewards for yourself. Sometimes when I'm working on an assignment and I feel the all too familiar urge to drop it and run, I have a glass of chocolate milk so that the task at hand is not so terrible—because I get to have chocolate milk as I complete it! Pairing a positive stimulus (chocolate milk) with a negative stimulus (homework) can be pretty effective in making the task a little less dreadful. You can also reward yourself by eating treats, listening to a couple favorite songs, or surfing the web (why don't we use that phrase anymore? It's a great phrase. Let me just go grab my surfboard before I get on Facebook real quick) after completing portions of a task or after working for certain amounts of time.

Let's talk about the Premack Principle (ugh, I just love psychology). The Premack Principle is when a more desirable activity is used to reinforce (in other words, maintain or motivate) the less appealing activity. When we do the least desirable task before other more reinforcing (enjoyable) tasks, our entire day is more enjoyable. If we eat our broccoli before we eat our filet mignon, we’ll enjoy our whole dinner more than we would if we saved the broccoli for last. The same is true of work. Finish the aversive task before you start easier and funner tasks. Starting in the morning, as awful as that sounds (the last thing I want to do when I wake up is homework) is extremely helpful. Sometimes I start a task before I even eat breakfast and it does wonders for productivity. It may be the last thing you want to do in the morning…which is exactly why you should do it in the morning. You'll be less stressed throughout the day and it’ll create more time to do things you enjoy later in the day.

Don't focus on the difficult aspects of the assignment because it's probably not actually as hard as you're hyping it up to be. Break the task into smaller pieces and take it one step at a time. This will help you to get started. Give yourself deadlines too. Schedule times to finish, or at least work on, different parts of the assignment.

Finally, I think the best advice to give is to just start. Sit down and write, or read, or outline—whatever the first step is, just start doing it. In the words of my oldest brother, and a lot of other people who are more famous than my brother, “There’s nothing to it but to do it!” But if this advice does not suffice (it does rhyme though), below is a really short video about productivity with a couple more excellent tips! It's so good, I watched it like five times in one sitting as I procrastinated writing this article—I mean, while doing research for this article…

So to conclude, in the words of Shia LaBeouf and Nike, “Don't let your dreams be dreams. Yesterday, you said tomorrow, so JUST DO IT.”