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Mastering Procrastination: Strategies for Overcoming Assignment and Study Delays

How do you handle and overcome procrastination when it comes to assignments and studying?

@aliceroye360

You have to recognise when you are procrastinating and when you are genuinely tired or need to do other things.

It's helpful to think about why you avoiding a piece of work for e.g. when you have lots of reading to do and you are taking notes that you have to do for an essay and you will have to spend hours finding different papers and references ,then it's easy to think that you have not got time to do that today and to leave it for another day.

So you have to be honest with yourself and do the work! You have to break it down so you don't feel overwhelmed. By giving yourself a realistic amount of work do in the next two hours or by the end of the day, you can have that sense of achievement when you accomplish it, and that helps to inspire you to get the work done and to persevere and a do a bit more the next day or the next time you work.

It is easy to procrastinate when something seems quite boring or tedious or when something feels too difficult. It is easy to give up before you have even begun, so you have to believe that you can get it done, that you can remember something (you just need to find a way to remember) and that you can get the research done, even it takes time.

You have to give yourself time. Start early so that you have time to procrastinate before the looming deadline puts everything into focus! Set yourself earlier deadlines and work towards them by breaking down the work.

Treat yourself once in awhile. Celebrate your mini successes. Take a night off. Rest.

Make sure that you are not spending all your time working or trying to work. Give your mind a break so that you have energy and enthusiasm to work, when you need to work.

Get up from your desk, stretch, and work in different places for a change of scene or to find out where you work best: the library, at your student accommodation, at a coffee shop etc...

Don't waste time beating yourself up about not doing any work, just sit yourself down and give yourself an hour and see what you achieve : )

It can be difficult to get into good working patterns and some work is easier to do than other work, but you have to stay focused on what you want to achieve at the end of it all – a degree : )

All the best,

Oluwatosin – 2nd year student – University of Huddersfield

Reply 2

cheadle

Get a giant laminated wall chart and put on all of your assignment deadlines and other important commitments.
Work back from each for a date by which you MUST start working on, or preparing for, each item. I would suggest a minumum of 2 weeks lead time.
That way you know if you pass that date, you are storing trouble for yourself.
Look out for hot spots where, eg more than one thing is due on the same date and extend the lead time.
Take into account the weightings of assignments. Work to pass everything obvs but allocate more time to assignments weighted at 70%+.