<p>I should be writing my essays right now, but I just can't bring myself to work on them. Is anyone else having the same problem? What do I do? Uuugh...</p>
<p>start small....with the opening paragraph...that is it...it all looks too much, so we end up doing nothing, but if you break it down into smaller pieces, it will start to flow</p>
<p>I am definitely having the same problem. Here is what I suggest.</p>
<p>See if you can borrow your mom or dad or brother or anybody's laptop and go to a place like Barnes & Noble or the library. That way you won't be distracted by your phone, the TV, anything else around your house that needs to be done, or CC (ha, it definitely distracts me!). </p>
<p>One thing that I did was just to sit down and type nonsense for 30 minutes straight. I wrote about why I want to go to so-and-so school and why I think that I deserve to go there, I wrote about why I'm different from people I know who are applying, I wrote about how the process is stressful, I wrote about the things that I notice and the things I want to change in the world, I wrote about food and airplanes and the view from the roof of my house and about 1030830 other things that made no sense.</p>
<p>And after you've written all that and just said anything that you want to say (it sounds kind of lame, but it's not really like a diary...I mean I didn't write about what I had done that day or my 'feelings') try and see if there is something anywhere in there that is entirely unique to you. Write for the 30 minutes as if you were trying to tell somebody who knows absolutely nothing about you who you really are with no regards to sentence structure or vocabulary or anything. Be weird. And at the end, it may not have helped at all, but you might find a little tidbit of something, for example, that you crave small discussion-based classes and feel that there is nothing better than an intellectual classroom debate and turn that into an idea for an essay about why you want to attend a certain LAC.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if that made any sense. Good luck!</p>
<p>I think you have competition in the best procrastinator category ... my daughter. I would love to give you some sage advice, but all I can say is: relax! Only YOU know what you can best write about to sell yourself. You CAN do it ... just let it flow!</p>
<p>thanks, j07... i'll try that out.</p>
<p>everyone's a procrastinator. EVERYONE. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. George Bush probably has his moments where he fires up Personal Computer One, loads up solitaire, and has himself some solitaire time. Don't go thinking you're a bad person.</p>
<p>That said, in the case of college essays, the most common REASON that someone is procrastinating is because, in the back of their mind, it seems like a monumental task and they just don't know where to start approaching it - so in response they just go do something else. Very, very common impulse. The best way to get around it is to start with an idea session:</p>
<ul>
<li> Think up 3-5 things you could write the essay about</li>
<li> Go around and talk to several people who know you very well, and ask them what they find the most striking about you, what part of you they think is your very best 'side'. Then follow up and ask them if a particular story comes to mind that illustrates this, that really captured something unique about your personality.</li>
<li> This should result in a few other good ideas. Try to think them through - can you tell the story in a witty way? Does it really show off a part of you that you're proud of? Something unique about your character, your personality, or some extraordinary experience?</li>
</ul>
<p>You can get kick-started pretty easily with external input. then just start fleshing out the ideas in your mind. maybe a few can practically write themselves. maybe you can really 'hear' the last paragraph in one of them. the writing will flow once you've got the ideas in place.</p>
<p>Hope that helps,</p>
<p>Steve</p>
<p>I've been intending to procrastinate, but I can't seem to get around to it.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the advice, guys...I'll definitely try some of those ideas :)</p>