Everyday, people tend to put things off to the side.
Sometimes it’s those little things like cleaning up the house, doing chores, or delaying homework and studying.
But often times procrastinators avoid large and difficult tasks by putting distractions before important tasks to waste time. Procrastinators usually give them something to do before facing the fact that they have these tasks at hand.
Procrastination is a horrible habit to pick up at an early age and is detrimental later on.
There are many different ways like doing your work on time or manage your time wisely but here are tips to start now.
1 Use your agenda
Agendas are very useful to keep your tasks tidied up and have everything sorted out.
It’s easier to remember what you have to do if it is written down
“I think that having an agenda will really help you manage your time,” junior Sydney Wuhrer said. “I use my personal agenda for everything since the school didn’t give us agendas at all.”
At AHS, agendas used to be given out to every student but this year, they changed that policy.
The agendas are now given to the freshmen class and are also sold separately to upperclassmen for five dollars.
“As a freshman, I don’t really use my agenda,” freshman Stephanie Alvarado said. “I feel as if they should’ve given the agendas to every class and not just ours.”
2 keep a schedule
You should keep a schedule along with your agenda.
Once your teachers give you dates for when assignments are due, you should plan out how long it will take you.
Try your best to write down what times of what days you are going to work on an assignment.
If you write this sort of information down, you will feel more motivated to not only do your work, but do it in a timely fashion.
“I keep a schedule of what I’m going to do during the day,” junior Emily Shawish said. “I keep track of what time my practices are, and how long I’m going to spend on each assignment.”
3 Start with the hardest tasks first
Starting the day with your biggest tasks will lighten up the workload that you will have to do later.
Starting with the hardest and most challenging task first will relieve yourself of the most stress making the rest of the day more positive. Also, you’ll feel good about yourself and a sense of relaxation.
“If I had an essay due the next day, I would start it first,” freshman Jasmine Covington said. “It really helps that doing the hardest thing makes the rest of the day easier and my to-do list even lighter.
4 Smaller tasks first, bigger tasks later
Similarly, you should do small assignments, then larger ones. Breaking down tasks is quick and easy.
First, take out all of your assignments and break them down from sheets of paper, packets, and study guides.
Then, make a note of how long it will take to do each. If it takes less than ten minutes to do a sheet of paper, start on that.
Then proceed to tackle everything else.
“Once I get home, I do the homework that takes five to fifteen minutes first” freshman Jasmine Covington said. “Then, I start on my bigger tasks like packets or study.”
5 Limit electronic usage
Once you plop down on your bed, resist the temptation of using anything electronic.
With the amount of time you already get from going to school and going home, time management is key to getting your work done and getting the grades that you want.
Playing games and using social media will take up your time before you know it.
This is really hard when you use your phone for hours at a time.
This tip will really help you stop the urge of procrastinating by cutting down the usage of your electronics.
“I tend to use my phone a lot and it takes up a lot of time out of my day,” junior Kevin Calix said. “I see the outcome of it since I don’t do my homework.”
6 Stop thinking, start doing
Instead of contemplating about doing something and wasting time, start doing them.
This is the easiest and simplest tip that you can start doing now.
Simple and quick actions is really time consuming if it all adds up.
When you think about something, you’re wasting minutes and even hours at a time not doing the work that you should be doing.
“With all of these new game releases, I don’t like saving all of my work for later but I have to,” junior Lucas Tewolde said. “The amount of time that I have spent procrastinating is too much to comprehend.”
7 Do a power hour
First, take an hour out of what you are doing and do as much work as you can in that one hour.
This one hour is very helpful because once you get home from school the free time that you have seems like a lot but is very little if wasted.
This hour you have a wide variety of things to get done.
“Personally, I have gotten so much work done in an hour,” Tewolde said. “From study guides to homework, all done when I took an hour out of my day from everything, even including games.”
8 Change yourself
At the end of the day, all these tips are helpful.
However, you need to change yourself.
Procrastinating takes a toll on your life and how you manage your time.
Changing this habit can be very beneficial to your everyday life.
Stop beating yourself up about the past tasks.
Thoughts such as “I should’ve started this earlier,” or “I need to stop procrastinating,” are negative and will only make matters worse.
Instead of focusing on other things such as playing games or hanging out with friends, strive for excellence, creating excellence.
At the same time, make sure to take a look at yourself, and focus on getting your tasks done.