7 Tips To Stay On Top of Your Assignment Deadlines
While there’s a certain adrenaline rush that comes with only just submitting your 3,000 word essay right under the wire, it’s never an ideal situation. Not if you want to live your life anxiety free.
Here are some ways to cut down on the stress and make assignments a little more bearable.
1. Ask, Ask, Ask
You can’t prepare for something you don’t know is coming. So, make sure you ask your lecturers as soon as class begins when your assignment deadlines are and what’s required for everything. This will not only make life less confusing, it also means if there does happen to be a problem in scheduling (for example: two different units are due on the same day) you’re more likely to get it changed.
2. Get A Diary
For some reason, writing things down just makes things stick more. Jotting something down in a random app in your phone is likely to reap any real rewards for you. By having a physical diary, you have a clear idea what needs to be done on what day. Plus think of all the cool stationary you now have an excuse to buy!
3. Do What You Can ASAP
No one expects you to draft up all six of your assignments in the first week. That kind of thing only really exists in TV shows and movies aka places that don’t usually possess great templates on how to live a balanced life.
But, you can certainly do what you can. Write the introductions to all your essays. Pick your title. If you have a clear idea of what your essay is why not start compiling research? Then do outlines. Make the writing process that much easier on yourself. You’ll thank yourself.
4. Don’t Procrastinate
While making notes in a diary and doing little tasks is all well and something I highly recommend. Don’t get lost in it. Don’t research for MONTHS and find yourself trying to turn pages and pages of research into a coherent essay the night before. Preparation is key but don’t prepare to the point of putting off the inevitable and the necessary.
Don’t create a schedule that would make the Mona Lisa faint at it’s beauty. You don’t need a gorgeous colour coded schedule. You need to pass your bloody course. So, get it together.
5. Work Hard, Play Smart
Juggling assignments isn’t fun. And while “work hard, play hard” sounds pretty simple, you’re not going to be able to work as hard as possible if you’re hungover from the bender you just went on.
While you should definitely make time to relax, going out every night is in most cases seriously overdoing it. While you can promise yourself going out won’t change anything, being woken up at 8am by your alarm for your 9am lecture with a pounding hangover headache is the reality of what’s actually going to happen.
So work hard, and play hard but don’t overdo it. Some nights are for drinking and dancing and some nights are just for watching TV and liking a bunch of random crap on Twitter.
6. Go To The Library
Going to the library is something every university student could probably do more of. We know it’s there. We know it’d probably be useful to go in. And yet . . .
The library is almost always going to be better than being holed up in your room. There’s quiet areas if you’re the kind of person who needs pin drop silence in order to do work. There’s also more communal areas where there’s more noise, if that’s what you need to concentrate.
It will always be much harder to procrastinate when you’re at the library because what kind of dummy treks all the way from home just to binge a TV show? Might as well work.
Also, when it comes to essay writing, teacher’s appreciate sources that aren’t ripped from a website and come from books. Either way, there are benefits. You definitely wont miss assignment deadlines any more!
7. Have Everything Ready 2 Days Before
Don’t wait until the day of your deadline to double check your references and tighten up that word count. Try and get everything in perfect shape a couple days before. It will cut down on stress and submitting early is always a good thing. Just think about all that extra time you have to do more work on your other assignment deadlines!
