Make yourself accountable

Set a writing deadline (apart from the paper’s due date) them a draft on such-and-such a date for yourself by making an appointment at the Writing Center or telling your TA (or a former TA) that you’re going to give. In the event that you make your Writing Center appointment for a number of days before the paper is due, then you may be motivated to possess a draft finished, in order to make the appointment worthwhile.

Keepin constantly your work (books, notes, articles, etc.) physically out, in full view, offers you a reminder that you need to start that you are in the middle of the paper, or. Also, it can be helpful to leave off in the middle of a paragraph and leave your ‘tools’ where they are if you write in more than one shift. When you return to the paper, you’ll be able to “warm up” by finishing that paragraph. Starting a section that is new may be much more difficult.

Work on improving your writing once you don’t have a deadline

Investigate your writing process. First of all, may very well not think you have got a plain thing called a “writing process.” However you do—everyone does. Describe your writing process in more detail.

Once you is able to see your writing process, then you can make a choice to improve it. But take it easy with this—only work on one part at the same time. Otherwise, you’ll get frustrated—and and overwhelmed we all know where that leads, straight along the procrastination road.

If you aren’t willing to evaluate your writing process completely (and it’s okay if you aren’t), then you might try just listing your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. As an example, maybe you are great at creating thesis statements, you have trouble developing arguments. Or, your papers are very well-organized, but your thesis and argument tend to fall only a little flat. Identifying these issues can help you do two things: 1) When you write, it is possible to write my paper play to your strength; and 2) you are able to choose one weakness and make a move about any of it whenever you DON’T have a deadline.

Now, doing anything whenever you don’t have a deadline may sound strange to a procrastinator, but bear beside me. Let’s say you’ve decided that your writing is just too wordy, and you would you like to work on being more concise. So, some time whenever you don’t have a paper—but you will do have a free hour—you waltz into the Writing Center and inform your tutor, “Hey, i’d like learn how to write more clearly.” You confer, and you come away with some strategies that are simple eliminating wordiness.

Here is why this could really make a difference the time that is next write a paper, no matter whether or otherwise not you’ve got procrastinated (again!): You print out your draft. It’s 1 a.m. Pay a visit to bed. The next morning, you read over your paper (it’s due at noon). You say to yourself, “Hmmm, I notice I’m being too wordy.” BUT, rather than concluding, “Oh, well, it’s too late, there wasn’t anything i could do about that,” (you can choose to employ some of what you learned (previously, when you weren’t under the gun) to make your writing more concise as you may have in the past. You edit the paper accordingly. You turn it in.

As soon as your instructor hands the papers back the following week, you can find far fewer instances of “awkward,” “unclear,” etc. in the margins. Voila! You’ve made a positive improvement in your writing process!

What does this have to do with procrastination? Well, making one change that is small your writing process creates momentum. You begin to feel more positive regarding the writing. You begin to be less intimidated by writing assignments. And—eventually—you start them earlier, as they used to be because they just aren’t as big a deal.

Evaluating the strengths and weaknesses in your writing offers you a sense of control. Your writing problems are solvable problems. Focusing on your writing once you don’t have a deadline makes it possible to gain insight and momentum. Soon, writing becomes something which, while you may well not look forward to it, you don’t dread quite the maximum amount of. Thus, you don’t procrastinate quite the maximum amount of.

This strategy also is the reason the truth that in the event that you perceive procrastination as having been successful for you personally in past times, you aren’t going to give it up right away

Hone your editing and proofreading skills

Because you don’t like to re-read what you have written, the good news is this: you can learn specific proofreading, revising, and editing strategies if you procrastinate on writing. In the event that you finish your paper ahead of time, and you re-read it, and you don’t enjoy it, you have got options. Writing an initial draft which you don’t like doesn’t mean you’re a writer that is terrible. Many writers—in fact, I would venture to say most—hate their drafts that are first. Neither Leo Tolstoy nor Toni Morrison produce(d) brilliant prose to begin with. In reality, Morrison (a large fan of revision) said recently because you wrote it that you don’t have to love your writing just! You may feel more comfortable with the idea of re-reading your papers if you practice some revision and editing strategies. You’ll know that if you learn weaknesses into the draft (and you’ll), can help you something to enhance those areas.

Among the best ways to combat procrastination is always to develop a more understanding that is realistic of. Procrastinators’ views of time are generally fairly unrealistic. “This paper will simply take me about five hours to create,” you might think. “Therefore, I don’t want to start on it through to the before. night” that which you may be forgetting, however, is that our time is generally full of more activities than we realize. On the in question, for instance, let’s say you go to the gym at 4:45 p.m night. You work out (an hour), take a dress and shower(30 minutes), eat dinner (45 minutes), and head to a sorority meeting (an hour). Because of the time you can get back into your dorm room to begin with focus on the paper, it is already 8:00 p.m. The good news is you’ll want to check your email and return a few telephone calls. It’s 8:30 p.m. if your wanting to finally sit down to publish the paper. If the paper does indeed take five hours to write, you are up to 1:30 each morning—and that doesn’t through the time that you’ll inevitably spend TV that is watching.

And, because it works out, it will require about five hours to publish a primary draft for the essay. You have got forgotten to permit time for revision, editing, and proofreading. You will get the paper done and turn it in the next morning. But you know it really isn’t your best work, and you are pretty tired from the night time, which means you make yourself a promise: “Next time, I’ll start early!”