Beat Procrastination at College: Get That Paper Done!

Everyone wants to get into a good college, get a better education, become highly qualified until it’s time to submit an essay or write a research report. Homework, assignments, deadlines are some of the words that drain college students’ will and make them wonder if they really need an education. And thus, begins the battle between college students and procrastination.

‘I will definitely start working on that report tomorrow’ are the words that you keep repeating every day until it’s way too late. The result is a haphazardly done assignment with embarrassing grammar mistakes and sloppy content.

Some astonishing procrastination facts

Some interesting procrastination statistics on flow psychology reveals that 95% of the college students tend to procrastinate regularly. 1 in every 5 people would happily choose to do the given task tomorrow. And the procrastinating population has doubled since the 1980s.

So, procrastination in college students is not new. If you think you belong to any of the demographics mentioned above, we might be able to help you.

Why do college students procrastinate?

Before you go ahead and look for ways to make procrastination vanish, you must know the causes of procrastination.

Lack of ideas: Majority of the students experience something similar to a writer’s block even before they begin writing. They don’t know where to start, or they are clueless about the topic altogether. Your brain takes this as a cue to get bored and focus on easier tasks.

Failure or Perfection: Those who are afraid of failure will postpone taking any steps towards accomplishing any task. If you don’t take any action, you don’t fail.

Another cause is an obsession with perfection. If you want something to be perfect, then you will refuse to take any action until you have thoroughly understood the task and feel confident about it.

Too many distractions: There is a reason why scrolling through Instagram is more interesting than browsing a thick biology book. Students know the best time to post on Instagram during quarantine, but they would avoid looking at geometric diagrams. This is because Instagram reels release more dopamine (a.k.a the pleasure hormone) than essays or studies.

How to deal with procrastination in college: 6 Quick Tips

Here are some actionable steps that you can implement immediately. These tips are no hacks that will get your essay ready in an hour. However, this will help you boost your creativity and productivity.

Get up, and get moving! Yes, get off your seat, and start performing push-ups or jumping jacks. If a brief walk appeals more to you, go ahead! The point is to let your brain take a break and comprehend the task. When you exercise, you focus more on physical efforts, and your brain functions better at intellectually demanding tasks. You will notice that you can concentrate better after a workout.

Start writing something: Ask any writer, and they will tell you that their first draft is always ugly and gives them nightmares. But the best way to write a compelling essay is to start writing something. Even if the ideas seem incomplete, irrelevant, and broken; pen them down before you forget them. If it helps, try noting the ideas in blocks or points.

Try to accomplish this idea-listing task in a few minutes. This duration is enough to gather substantial data for your paper or essay.

Get out of the box: Writing from scratch allows you to look at the subject from different angles. You can throw light on less discovered topics, or you can discover a whole new angle. Most of the students will refer to some existing material and try to follow that pattern. This narrows down your scope, and not everyone can follow the style of writing or understand the fancy words. And nobody has stopped you from using your imagination or search engines.

Eliminate distractions: We can all agree that the phone is a major cause of procrastination in college. Turn that phone off. Snapstreaks can wait, your friend can Facetime you later. Get that paper done before you start thinking about other tasks. Any small distraction would give you an excuse to abandon that paper.

Run in sync with the clock: Let the ticks of the clock nudge you to hurry. If you don’t set a time limit, you will take forever to complete the paper just because you have the luxury to postpone it. Don’t dedicate a week to a report that can be done in a few hours. You are more likely to procrastinate the assignment if you spend way too much time on it.

Let someone lend you a hand: What if it’s too late to write that report? If you are here, then it’s probably too late to write a paper worthy of that A. Under such circumstances, you should get help from professional writers online. Services like cheapwriting.services offer affordable quick-fix solutions and help you get a decent grade.

Moreover, if you have written a paper, but you are not very confident about it, you can get it rewritten and edited. They will help you with anything that prevents you from submitting a sloppy paper!