Students tend to procrastinate on writing essays for college because of the overwhelm and anxiety it causes. But trying to solve a problem by running away from it is never a good solution. We have all been there. Avoiding something very important until the day before the deadline. Reaching that stage somehow gives us immense strength and resilience, which was not present before. Procrastinating inevitably results in less time for proper research and presenting a good paper. Most students try to pull all-nighters to make up for the lost time. Here are some tips and tricks to avoid procrastinating on an important essay:
Use Anxiety to your Advantage:
Anxiety is inevitable – the key is to use it to your advantage. Instead of running away from the emotion, embrace it. Accept that you are feeling anxiety over the essay. However, this is easier said than done. If your anxiety is crippling, you will be avoiding the task like the plague. If you are feeling overwhelming emotions of anxiety to the point where you can’t get anything done, bring it to a manageable level. One idea is to make use of the 5-seconds rule and 5-minute rule. Research says that it only takes 5 seconds or, in some cases, even less time for your brain to talk you out of something. Just count backward from 5 to 0 and propel yourself towards the task. Another idea to hack your anxious brain is to tell yourself that you will only work on the essay for 5 or 10 minutes. These 5 minutes of focused work are probably enough to get you hooked on the task at hand.
Start Writing:
This advice might seem intuitive, but many of us find it hard to practice. The only way to write a good essay is to actually write one. For the majority of students, research, brainstorming, outlining, etc., are ways to procrastinate on actually writing the paper. Form a basic outline of your essay based on your preliminary research. The key strategy to writing your essays fast is eliminating distractions, focusing, and putting words onto your page. Once you start writing, ideas arrange themselves, and you will find that a killer essay emerges. Write even though you think it is not perfect; editing can always be done at the end of the process.
Use Technology:
One strategy for writing college essays is to use technology to your advantage. Make an event of your essay writing. Change the environment – go to a fairly calm place, like a park or a library. You can also make use of website blockers to eliminate distractions while you are writing. These website blockers are password enabled and help you block distracting websites such as YouTube or Facebook on your computer. You can also make use of writing tools available in the market, which only unlock after you have written a set number of words.