As the new semester begins to speed up and we grow closer and closer to the dreaded midterms, we find ourselves at a point where motivation runs dry, with the easy syllabus classes far over and the signs of Stop Day so far in the distance. The cold and gloomy weather isn’t helping either, and college campuses tend to be deserts for motivation during the cold winter months.
So, if you are lacking the motivation to finally lock in on that paper or lab report and find yourself procrastinating every assignment and chore, you are certainly not alone. Here are five simple steps to beating that bitter mid-semester procrastination.
#1 Catch yourself in the act
You’ve probably heard before that the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem. Procrastination works in similar ways. You may not even realize you are putting off important work until the last minute because your brain has grown so accustomed to the behavior.
The truth is, procrastination doesn’t always reveal itself in the same way. We picture the word as pushing our computer to the side and doomscrolling on our phone instead. And while I’m sure many of us are guilty of this, it’s not the only way to procrastinate getting work done.
Procrastination can be prioritizing small and easy tasks to keep yourself busy, preventing you from doing the tasks that require the most attention and focus. Sometimes we also tell ourselves those tasks won’t require much time and effort to justify not doing them. Even the idea of starting a task can be scary because of the possibility that it may not be completed perfectly.
If you find yourself doing any of these things, stop for a moment, take a deep breath and recognize that this is your brain’s way of communicating dread or distaste for the task at hand. The way in which you procrastinate a task may be different than what you had previously realized. By identifying the feeling that you don’t want to complete a task, you are well on your way to eliminating that feeling of apprehension.
#2 Give yourself some grace
Although procrastination is often associated with cramming in work and used as an antonym for the concept of productivity, it is important to remember that everyone has a system that works differently for them.
Some people are truly motivated by pressure and produce their best work on a time crunch. While this does make one a chronic procrastinator, that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.
The trick to giving yourself grace and allowing a form of comfortable procrastination is learning what tasks need to be tackled ahead of time and which ones require less interactive work and can be pushed until the last minute. The key to successful procrastination is organization and being aware of all the aspects of what needs to be done in order to give yourself a realistic time frame to do them.
An example of this would be a long-term interview project vs. a quick worksheet of calculus homework. The calculus homework is straightforward, requiring you to solve the problems and turn in the correct answers, whereas the project is more interactive and requires collaboration and an interview with another student. This type of assignment should not be procrastinated, and by taking note of the nature of the tasks when the work is assigned, one could categorize this as something that needs to be worked on earlier, whereas the calculus homework could be pushed off, with less of a struggle when it comes to completing the work.
At the end of the day, if procrastinating small assignments or the occasional paper works best for you, that doesn’t make you unproductive and you can learn to embrace that quality when the assigned work allows for procrastination.
#3 Break up the work
Procrastination often results from distaste for a task or that feeling of dread that fills your stomach when your professor assigns yet another five-page analysis. These tasks feel overwhelming and scary and your brain feels at a loss for a place to start, so you simply don’t.
You can counter this by breaking up tasks that feel tall or heavy into smaller, more manageable parts. This can be done over a longer period of time, such as one page of analysis a day over the course of five days, or it can be broken up into one longer study session. Set a goal of 500 words, and give yourself a 10-minute break once you’ve completed it.
Sometimes, the idea of getting started and typing the first word on the page is what prevents us from getting the work finished. We feel overwhelmed by the long hours we will have to put in to finish the paper, so we refrain from starting. By making the task seem simpler or smaller, it can feel less intimidating to start, committing to only a few minutes as opposed to a few hours.
#4 Reward yourself
Positive reinforcement is typically very beneficial when it comes to productivity. Providing yourself a reward for the task that feels overwhelming and scary can give you something to work towards other than the deadline.
Rather than rushing to type out enough syllables to reach that word count before 11:59 p.m., working toward an end goal can produce more level and less rushed final products. This doesn’t have to mean a huge party or night out. Reward yourself with an episode of your favorite TV show or a coffee before class tomorrow.
Motivation sometimes works in strange ways, and sometimes being motivated by a reward that you want can make the tasks at hand feel a little less scary. Larger tasks can be associated with larger rewards and smaller ones with simpler pleasures. Whatever it takes to make you want to sit down and complete the work is a beneficial endeavor.
Repetition can also be a tool in a reward system. If you have a weekly assignment due for a class, you can associate the completion of that weekly assignment with a task that you complete each week anyway, such as your Wednesday night everything shower or your Thursday morning Zoom call with your friends.
#5 Invest in a planner
Sometimes procrastination isn’t an intentional mishap at all. Sometimes assignments are pushed off until the last minute due to a lack of organization and a lack of awareness that such a task needs to be completed.
Realistically, every assignment has its own due date and timeline for when it needs to be completed. And keeping track of five to seven classes worth of assignments along with other responsibilities that we all endeavor as college students can be overwhelming and lead to tasks that feel unimportant being put off.
To prevent this from happening, a college planner can be extremely beneficial to keep your life organized. It is proven that writing tasks and notes down on paper improves memory and awareness of them significantly, and even if you choose not to use the planner as a guide, writing the tasks down will increase the memory of the assignment or event in your mind.
Some people are inclined to say that “planners don’t work for me,” but explore the planner aisle at your local Target or check Amazon. People’s brains are admittedly organized differently, and there are hundreds of planners and notebooks on the market that organize tasks by hour, color, category or any type of organization you can imagine. Find one that works for you, and get into the habit of writing things down to avoid the stress of writing a paper 20 minutes before the deadline.
Overall, procrastination can be a weapon or a curse. Learn to use the skills of procrastination to your advantage, get a grasp on how your brain feels motivated for tasks, and you will rock the rest of the semester.
It may feel far away now, but the end of the semester is in sight, and the slump that comes with the February gray will eventually fade. Using these five steps, you can make it to the perfect 4.0 semester, one on-time paper at a time.