Over quarantine, people overly adapted to the new and easy lifestyle of not doing anything all day. Going into school, students kept that same mindset and continued to live their days doing nothing that required too much brainpower. However, with this lifestyle, students pushed off their assignments until the last minute, and lost all motivation to do work and put effort into school. Now, believe me, I am no exception to this trend, but everyone knows the saying “the students become the teacher”, so I am here, an expert of procrastinating, to give the best tips and tricks to just do your work. 

One of the most common causes of procrastination is feeling overwhelmed by all the work you have to do. Not keeping an everyday planner with your assignments written down can lead to this excessive stress. Most students have completely thrown out the idea of organizing their assignments in a notebook that clearly state all the work they need to do that day, which can cause extra stress and lead to students forgetting what assignments to do. It is also important to keep a timeline of when you want to get assignments done. This helps keep students on track to get all of their assignments done, instead of just taking an excessively long time on a particular one. The start of an efficient homework session is to be prepared with all your assignments and know when they are due. 

Secondly, it is vital to dig deep and find some motivation to actually sit down and do your assignments in a timely manner. Setting small goals throughout the day can help students find the strength to get work done. For example, setting the goal of starting homework at 3:00 p.m. gives yourself enough time to get a snack and relax for some time after school. Then, once you finally settle down to do work, setting another goal to get at least an hour of work done, or complete one assignment before taking a small break, and then starting another assignment or doing another hour of homework until you have finally finished all your work. Small check marks like these will give students a sense of determination to achieve the goal, and gives the students something to celebrate. Camille Khong (10) admits that she “cannot deny the satisfaction of taking a break for ‘just five more minutes’, but it’s the process of developing better habits not just to get a task done, but for a better lifestyle that will benefit you in the long run.” 

One of the most crucial parts of not procrastinating is to eliminate all distractions while working on assignments. It means nothing when you sit down with all your homework at hand if you are just going to get sidetracked and go on your phone or focus on the TV. These obstacles are some of the hardest to overcome because your phone is just a reach away, but the ending reward of actually getting your homework done, rather than scrolling through TikTok is much more satisfying, and you will thank your future self for now being able to relax without having to worry about that assignment due at 11:59 p.m. 

Prioritizing time to stop procrastination is not a skill that you will master over time. However, it is a skill that is worth the effort, for it will create important, useful habits that will lead to success in the future. There will be many instances while in college, or even when you find a stable job, that you will look back and thank yourself for establishing these habits while you are still developing and growing. By following the simple steps of keeping a planner, setting goals, and eliminating distractions, you will soon find that procrastination will become less of a problem and your work habits will be affected in a positive way.