Procrastination is one of those things that everyone does. But it's so bad. I'm only at the beginning of my journey to ending my procrastination, but here's some unsolicited advice from the queen of putting stuff off.

For my entire life, I've put things off. As a kid, I was smart enough to do schoolwork on the car ride to school, so I didn't do it until then. In high school, I didn't study for tests until the night before the exam, I didn't write essays until hours before they were due, even when I had weeks and weeks to prepare. I thought I worked best under time-pressure. I wasn't wrong, per say, but this strategy was bad for me. Now, I see mail and put off opening it, just in case it's a bill. I tell myself that I clean up every part of my house an hour before company arrives. I keep thinking that it will somehow work, but it doesn't. Not at all.

In fact, the only things upon which I still do well are those where I do not procrastinate. Ironically, considering that my procrastination began because schoolwork, school is now the main place where I refuse to procrastinate. It makes sense, considering that most assignments are easy 100-percents, as long as I turn in the assignment on time. Now, I just make up arbitrary due dates for my assignments, usually a week before they are actually due. This strategy helps me keep my time-pressure, so I still have good work, but allows me to actually do assignments on time (which was my biggest problem during my freshman year.)

Since I've become much more adept at doing things early and on time, my next goal is to avoid stressing out about certain things to the point of avoiding them. I know that the hardest part of the process is taking ownership of my mistakes and correcting them all. Once that's done, all I have to do is follow the same system that I follow for school. I see a bill, I open it, and I immediately pay it. I get my tax information, and I fully do my taxes that week. I need to buy a plane ticket, I purchase it at the opportune time. It isn't hard, it just makes me anxious. And I need to get over that to become a responsible adult.