More often than not, the first thing that your professor will give you is a complete syllabus containing all of the assignments for the semester. And yet somehow, those sneaky little essays find a way to fly under the radar until you realize with horror that it is due the following day.

Below are ten truths that all college students know all too well to be true: the ten phases of the miracle of completing an essay the night before it is due.

Phase one: Preparation

Needless to say, the most critical part of pulling an all-nighter is possessing the ability to actually remain awake, despite every fiber of your body screaming in protest that it is time for rest. You take a moment to pause and ponder just how you might go about achieving such a lofty goal. Energy drinks? Too repulsive. Music? Too distracting. Sugar? Sugar crash. Coffee? Yep, looks like it’s going to be coffee. Now the question becomes, how much? You drain your first cup, and are disappointed to find that your eyelids are still threatening to close. You shrug and brew yourself a second cup. Then a third.

Note to self: the night of the dreaded all-nighter is not the appropriate time to be testing your caffeine tolerance, especially if you are not a regular coffee drinker. I repeat: bouncing off the walls and shaking uncontrollably will not be of any benefit to you when you are trying to be productive. Know your limits before you have to.

Phase two: Biting the Bullet

You sit at your desk, sigh, crack your knuckles, and being to type. For every three words that you type, you delete at least one. Frustrated, you look at the clock to find that a whole whopping five minutes have gone by. This is going to take a while.

You think back to the words of wisdom that your older sister imparted upon you in preparation for your first year of college. “Remember what they say: ‘Be it not due tomorrow morning, no progress will ye yet be forming.’” You remember wistfully how you had laughed, convinced that you’d never find yourself in such a position. Starting an essay the night before it’s due? Preposterous! She had laughed along with you. But now that you think about it, you should have known that there was something fishy about the way her lips smirked slightly, the way her green eyes gleamed knowingly. She had known all too well that she was right.

Phase three: Trucking Along

You slowly begin to develop a rhythm. You’re not quite ‘in the zone’ yet, but you’re making progress. Go you.

Phase four: Huhmuhnuh…what??

You violently jerk awake. For a few moments you are completely discombobulated, noticing that your paper is now 47 pages long. You then realize that you fell asleep with your arm pressed on the keyboard. You highlight everything except the first page and a half and delete it.

Phase five: Repetition.

Repeat phases two and three.

Phase six: Invincibility

Congratulations, you’ve reached the zone! This usually occurs anytime between eleven at night and two in the morning. During this phase, you feel like if Atlas were to drag you up to his mountain and hand you the sky, you could hold it with your little finger. Take advantage of this phase. It does not last long.

Phase seven: Distraction

Research shows that staying awake for longer than eighteen hours straight has a chemical effect on the human body equivalent to that of being drunk. Exceed that by an additional six hours to make it a solid twenty-four hours sans sleep, and you miraculously develop a newfound appreciation for the little things in life—and by the little things, I mean practically microscopic in the greater scheme of things. Once you surpass your twenty-fourth consecutive hour of wakefulness, absolutely anything within your immediate surroundings becomes a full-fledged contender for your undivided attention. The random spot on your ceiling? Fascinating. The blinking curser on your screen? Mesmerizing. Folding laundry has never been so exciting—neither has sweeping the floor, making the bed, or organizing your backpack. So long as it has absolutely no affiliation with the current academic task at hand, you will participate with the utmost enthusiasm.

Phase eight: Overtired

This phase is mainly characterized by being completely awake, with zero productivity. Lots of blank notecards are mindlessly torn to shreds as you stare blankly at the wall. Caution: falling out of your chair for no legitimate reason is currently a serious concern.

Phase nine: Sunrise

You’ve spent the past few hours typing and are getting close to reaching the (minimum) page requirement. What did you write? Not a clue. But it’s there.

Phase ten: Completion

You look over at the clock and briefly debate whether it’s worth skipping breakfast to nap for half an hour. Your stomach growls indignantly, quickly dissuading you from such a blasphemous suggestion. You stumble outside and attempt to start the day.