With just three short weeks left until final exams, I've found myself continuously growing frustrated with my inability to stay on top of my growing number of assignments. The deadlines that seemed so far away back when the semester began in January are suddenly just days away and I'm beginning to look less like this...
and more like this...
Though I know better than to procrastinate, I continuously sabotage my own success in these last few weeks of the semester by pushing my assignments off until the very last minute. So, as panic sets in and I get drawn deeper into the dark world of procrastination-nation, I've begun to find ways to productively procrastinate, and let me tell you, if you follow these 5 tips, your life may just get a whole lot easier.
1. Use your procrastination as motivation.
If you have a list of tasks in your planner that you must complete by Sunday at midnight but one of them appears too daunting for the time being, focus on the smaller tasks! While you may feel like you're procrastinating the larger assignment, you are, in a sense, building momentum to its completion by doing the "less important" assignments first.
2. Do your work, but do it creatively.
If a task is stressing you out, find a new way to approach it. By breaking down your assignment up into small pieces that you complete over a few days, you reward yourself with not only the opportunity to work on several tasks as once but also the satisfaction of knowing that you're on track to getting everything done when it needs to be.
3. Change your deadlines.
If you see several tasks coming up that will all be due around the same time, set your own personal deadline ahead of the actual due date. This way, when you're procrastinating your assignment until the last minute, you'll end up ahead of yourself!
4. Take (productive) breaks.
When you find yourself starting to go stir crazy, it may be time to step away from what you're working on and do something else. Whether it be by grabbing a quick snack, cleaning up the clothes that have scattered your bedroom floor for a week or going for a short drive to brainstorm some ideas, taking breaks to complete another task that may be weighing on you will prove beneficial in the long run.
5. Reward yourself.
Create incentives for the work that you do accomplish! For every two solid hours of work you complete, allow yourself to watch an episode of your favorite Netflix show. This way, you can find a balance between work and doing things that you enjoy.
