I have so many different things to do and I don’t know where to start!

The hardest part of scheduling is admitting your flaws and addressing them head on, whether it’s homework or anything else. For procrastinators, they should generally do the worst thing first. Sure it sounds terrible, but if the procrastinator saves the worst for last, they are creating a situation that encourages their natural flaw of delaying work.

More advice for procrastinators: Just because you should arrange your work time so that you do the worst of your homework first doesn’t mean that you have to make yourself miserable. Work with your procrastinating habit by arranging to work for 20 minutes, then take an eight to ten minute break: stretch, get another class of water, dance around to a song, wipe down the counter, whatever works for you. You’ll be doing at least 40 minutes of work each hour, and you can engage that work with a refreshed mind. But remember, you have to work for those 20 minutes, and relax for the 8 to 10 in between!

Maybe your biggest enemy is anxiety. If that is the case, do something easy first, to give yourself confidence, then switch to the hardest thing, then back to something easy. This is a process that will allow you feel effective and competent so that you can tackle the tough stuff. You deserve breaks, too! Take them. You should probably make your breaks a bit shorter, closer to five minutes, so that your anxiety doesn’t have time rise up again. Also, consider doing more active things on your breaks, a few lunges, some long stretches, or whatever you know won’t activate further anxiety or stress.

To everyone: do not take your breaks on the computer that you are working on. Five or ten minutes of TV is OK, but not if it’s on the same laptop you’ve been staring into for six hours. Texting with a friend is nice, but not if you are sitting in the same chair with your laptop humming away in front of you. Stress, anxiety, and procrastination are not something you can just stop feeling. But wherever you’re at on the sliding scale, you can do things to improve your circumstances and your work output. Don’t let perfection be your enemy, accept that better is better and embrace improvement!