Avoiding procrastination on university assignments
Lists are absolutely the best way to stay on top of everything. Lists give you a visual, tangible idea of where you have been (assignments-wise) and where you are going. Do your best to prioritize as much as possible; it will keep you aware of what needs to be done now and what can wait until later, tomorrow, the weekend, or 5 minutes before class.
That said, there are other tips to keep yourself organized:
Invest in a planner. - Day planners (or the cheapie kind that your University probably sells at the bookstore) are absolutely clutch. Copy out assignments from the syllabus, take notes on reading changes the professor mentions in class, and write in giant, capital letters the due dates for papers, tests, and projects into your calendar! For example, if you have an Orgo test on April 18th, then on April 18th, write in all caps, "ORGO MIDTERM!" Also copy out meeting times and meet-up plans when you make them so that you're never late or forget you've made plans. Finally, what always helped me was highlighting assignments that had been completed; whatever wasn't yellow still needed to be done.
Use your Google products! - My university had a Google Enterprise contract, so all university students had Google products as part of their IT package. That meant we had Gmail accounts with associated Google Docs and Calendars. Even if you don't have Google accounts for your university, you probably have them for personal use, or your email client should support something similar. (Outlook 2010, if you're using it, has a Calendar built in, for example.) I would check my email before heading to class every morning, so I took to having my Google Calendar schedule emailed to me every morning at like 5:30am Buy Cheap Handbag - Handbag Heaven. It helped me remember meetings I might have agreed to via my email but didn't copy into my planner, and it helped me schedule out time for doing my homework, hanging out with friends, and sleep. Google Docs, meanwhile, is essentially a hard drive in the sky. Instead of emailing yourself your term paper at every edit, you can track edits in GDocs itself, allowing you to revert back to older copies. Google Docs also autosaves to The Cloud, meaning a freak hard drive crash isn't the end of your 30-page final due tomorrow. Finally, you can work on your paper anywhere. Suddenly find yourself with 45 minutes in the library? Take advantage of that time to make progress on your paper.
Folders are your friends. -- I kept folders for each of my classes. I rarely if ever lost track of papers or handouts, and everything ended up essentially in reverse chronological order. I say folders (brads, two pockets) because these are lighter, cheaper, and easier to keep in satchels/tote bags/purses/smaller packs than binders. They also lie flatter than binders, so you can press them against a laptop in a computer bag, if need be.
Color coding can save you time -- If you choose to keep a big desk or wall calendar, then consider color coding Wholesale Sunglasses 2015. At a glance, you'll be able to see what's dominating your time, what's the most time-consuming activity you have going, and where you have/can make time for other things you may wish to do. However, I don't suggest color coding in a planner; it can get cramped, colorful, and meaningless very fast.
I think, ultimately, the most important thing to remember is that work is only part of the college experience. Don't get me wrong; you want to succeed and do awesome in your major and your classes. However, do make sure to take time to go to the gym, hang out with your friends/floor, to check out all of the myriad amazing, cool, and found-nowhere-else activities and offerings that your campus has. Balance (and rest!) are the most important part of succeeding in university.
In my experience, procrastination never simply occurs magically on it's own. What I mean by this is that if we legitimately want something done, it gets done. When we procrastinate, it is because there is an unusual incentive avoiding work until the last possible minute.
One common example of this is in the form of something called self-handicapping. Essentially what happens is a person holds a fear of failure Oakley Men’s Sunglasses. More than anything else they don't want to see proof that they are a failure at life. As a result, when they get an assignment they are not confident on, they will subconsciously push it off until the very last minute. The idea being that if they do poorly on the assignment, it will be because they did not have enough time, rather than their skills were not up to par.
Identify: What belief or fear could be encouraging you to procrastinate. What do you gain by putting off tasks until last minute. When you physically muster all the willpower you can into doing an assignment on time, what worries, fears, or tendencies pop up? Eventually, you ideally want to come to a conclusion like the one above, where the base fear is "I'm a failure". Don't be afraid to also ask people close to you for feedback as to what they notice being motivators for your behavior.
Understand: Understand exactly how your current coping mechanism of procrastination both helps and hurts you. In the above example and probably in your own, it would be hurting you because it is obviously affecting your grades, productivity, and maybe even your ability to enjoy yourself. The way it helps in the above example, is it protects the person's self esteem. By at least not failing unintentionally, the person can feel that to some degree they aren't the failure could see themselves being.
Substitute: Once you understand the situation inside and out, find a new way of being that both fulfills your current need for productivity, good grades, etc. and your old need (in this example feeling like not a failure). An example of a new way of being would be to believe something like that you are a successful person as long as you are putting your full heart into what you are doing, and the reason for this is because success come from falling off the horse and getting back on it, not from never riding the horse in the first place.
Reinforce: Whatever new belief or way of being is, it will sound very appealing to you to hypothetically believe, but will sound like a load of absolute hogwash to you. We don't just magically believe new things, so you'll need to slowly reinforce your new way of being. You do this by finding small goals of little things that are of minimal effort to reinforce this new belief. An example would be as simple as finding evidence of people who had to fail to succeed such as Michael Jordon not making his high school basketball team, or Einstein being considered mentally handicapped as a child due to not talking until he was four.
The whole above process is very long and very slow, taking easily months to years depending on the difficulty, but it's incredibly worthwhile. if you are devoting time to studying, make a list of what you need to study.
Break up bigger projects into smaller ones - dont put the entire term paper on the list as one item. Smaller items allow you to track progress and generate less stress.
How you make and track these lists are up to you - I usually use something electronic, but when it comes to crunch time, I often resort to a whiteboard. It is hard to beat the tactile thrill of obliterating an item off the list.
3) Take the remaining time and commit at least 3 or 4 hours per day to working on the items in step 1.
This always seems to work for me when I have tons of crap that needs to get done. Also, I cannot understate the necessity for SLEEP! If you can't commit to 8 hours of sleep each night, you will inevitably hit a wall and come up with lots of reasons to procrastinate and/or be very forgetful.
