<p>Sorghum, my advice (based on BTDT) is to mentally set yourself a deadline several days before the course deadline. I got most of the way through college using the “dump in information and let it percolate until a paper falls out” method, and still use that method for shorter projects. But you can’t expect it to work for 25+ page papers, and you can start decanting before the last minute, with practice.</p>
<p>Also, I’d interpret “immediately” not as the time to decant, but the time to dump in.</p>