I’m a terrible procrastinator… Next year is junior year, and I’m nervous that putting off everything is really going to detrimental :-/ anyone have tips?
Work on the assignment for an amount of time (how ever long you can concentrate for) AS SOON as you have the time to do it. No exceptions. I procrastinate to and have found I am more likely to do something if I work on it imminently after I am given the work.
Write down all of your assignments and their due dates somewhere, particularly in some type of agenda. It helps me to write down all of the work that I have in my agenda. This way, I am able to see the work that I need to do, along with how much time I have to do the work. Give yourself time to work on the assignments. If you have a paper (or something similar) that’s due 2-3 weeks in advance, break it down. Do a little bit of the work every night or every other night. By breaking it down in pieces, the work will seem more manageable and easier to handle. Giving yourself a lot of time to complete a task allows you to avoid stressing yourself the night before the assignment is due! Another idea is to start off small. This is sort of similar to what I previously said. If you have 5 different assignments all due in a week, focus on the smaller/easier work first. Working on the assignments that are easier to manage first can help you think that you can accomplish everything. If you start with a big assignment, you might get frustrated quicker than if you worked on multiple, smaller assignments (and finished them). Hope this helps!
You can’t avoid procrastination. It always wins…
Use an app or book that works for you. I use myHomework which shows you a calendar of all your assignments and tests and quizzes and what days they are on so you know when you will be most busy. Think of getting work done now as saving you stress later… I am sure we ALL know the horrible feeling when you put two papers off, reading a textbook chapter, and studying for three tests off until 8:00 the night before…
What works for me is to really get interested in the subject and try to figure out times when I’m most interested in doing the work. If that doesn’t work, I push myself to do it anyway. Usually I’ll get interested in it, if not I’ll continue it until I’m done.
I agree with the above user, apps can help you cross off all the work you’ve done.
Decide to not procrastinate.
Sounds simple, right? You know that you want to not procrastinate, so go ahead – invest some emotional energy into this decision. Once you’ve done that, you’ve made a promise to yourself, and every time that you get that itch to procrastinate, know that to give in is to break your promise to yourself. From there, working when you’d rather be procrastinating starts to feel good – you’re doing the right thing! – and if you let yourself get addicted to the feeling of conquering the desire to do nothing, doing homework becomes a lot easier.
It does help to build up momentum. When you get home from school or after-school activities, immediately start working – don’t check social media or have a snack. You can reward yourself with short bursts of those things once you finish an assignment or two.
Furthermore, if you know that there’s an assignment that you’re dreading, it’s okay to not do it first; instead, do other assignments to remind yourself how good it feels to check things off your checklist. Once you get rid of a little bit of the pressure and stress and you’ve built up some momentum, try the dreaded assignment.
Stopping procrastination is purely about pushing yourself to not procrastinate.
Thanks for all the helpful responses!! You guys are awesome 
When you have a whole lot of things to do, it might be hard to get started. So the trick is to break the whole collection of tasks into smaller, more manageable chucks. When having a hard time getting started, take a standard size sheet of paper, draw a line from top to bottom, and another line left to right across the middle leaving four quadrants. Label the top of the left column “Important” and the top of the right column “Not Important”. Label the top row “Urgent” and the bottom row “Not Urgent”. Then go through the list of things you think you have to do (or your class assignments/chores/other obligations) placing each one in one of the four boxes.
Next, try to make a dent on the Important/Urgent tasks. Cross off each one as you complete it, so that you can see the progress you are making. And when you have finished everything in the top left box, stop. Take a break. Reward yourself. Go do something fun for a bit. (But not too long).
When you come back from your break, see whether anything has shifted boxes. Important/Not Urgent stuff might now be more urgent, or Urgent stuff that wasn’t Important before might have increased in importance. If so, work on that task. Otherwise, pick a task from either the Important/Not Urgent or Urgent/Not Important boxes, finish it, cross it off your sheet, note your progress, reward yourself, rinse, repeat…
Be sure to list things like eat, sleep, bath, call your parents/friends, etc. in one of the four boxes.
Keep your sheets, and every once and a while look at all the things you have crossed off. You will rightfully feel a sense of accomplishment that will help keep you going.
Good Luck!
@jrm815 that’s an awesome idea! I’m definitely trying that; I usually do all the urgent/not important first, and save the urgent/important for last, and I think this will definitely help!
Just… Do all your homework faster than your teachers can assign it. Armor up. A lot of it is busywork or BSable work, so brute force through it all as soon as possible. Lots of note taking assignments? (Write a bunch of BS notes or use coursenotes) Do chapters in advance. It’s possible to write 4 pages of notes in 30 minutes if you rush it. Vocabulary, just go down the list and spam it up. Math problems, they never read all the solutions anyways… Use a Ti-89, use the solution manual and insert that as a final answer. Readings, just read.
Basically, do your homework as fast as possible (learn the tricks to the work) and as early as possible (and ahead of schedule if you have extra free time) and you’ll have the whole week off to do extracurricular activities and other good stuff after Tuesday even if you’re on maximum AP class schedules. That’s how you make senior year really relaxing when you can actually enjoy nights off.