College 101: To Not Get Behind

Okay. We have put off that paper, or whatever the assignment is, for a few too many days. Now here we are, its late, and we’re stuck doing whatever our assignment is — stuck with no one but ourselves to blame. Well, enough of the self-pity. How do we go about getting this done? Furthermore, how do we keep ourselves awake? Most importantly, how do we learn to never do this again?

First, when is this assignment due? The night we are beginning to work on it? A day from now? Two days from now? If the first, well, we are really in trouble. We will be pulling a college classic: an all-nighter. Not to worry, we are fast typists. We are willing to sacrifice some of our GPA. Right? However, assuming we have a day (or two), then we can evaluate when we will have time to work on the assignment. That hour-ish gap between classes? Yeah; we are not getting a frappe or perusing Instagram. We are pulling out our laptop and typing. We will set goals: “I want to have this done by this time”; or “I will go to the writing center when I have X amount typed.”

Though, if we choose to stay up at night (or because we need to), we’re pulling out our headphones and blasting some tunes. Tunes that we can put in the back of your mind — not the ones that make us get up and dance. That way, we don’t drink coffee and mess up our struggling sleep pattern even worse than it already is. But we can get up at times, take small breaks, and then get back to work. Once we are exhausted, it’s time to go to bed. That way we can get up early and tackle the assignment again. We will feel much more alert after we have had some sleep. The sooner we get the paper or whatever it is done, the better we will feel.

Got that assignment done? Good. Hopefully, we learned something right? We did? Great. Now, remember that tip on working on schoolwork between classes instead of chilling? We want to do that from now on. Start an assignment the day it is assigned. Even if we only do a rough draft, we are making progress. We can start pouring our thoughts out and getting them onto paper. From there, we can continue refining, editing, and adding any sources if they are needed. While keeping in mind whatever format was required by the teacher. And that is it; how to learn to never get behind on schoolwork again. That’s probably too idealistic, but it’s a start.