Procrastination

How to Beat It and Succeed in Online College

Procrastination problems will kill you in online college. It's the number one issue for new online students.

Putting things off is twice as risky when you're working in an online class. The reason? It's really easy to procrastinate in an online course. Which is kind of funny if you think about it.

Freedom breeds procrastination.

In online college there is no inbuilt impetus to get yourself going. It's much easier when you have to actually be in a classroom -- on time, every day, showered and dressed.

Online classes don't have daily deadlines. And that can be deadly if you aren't extremely self-disciplined.

The other reason it's so risky is because online instructors have gotten tough. They've had to. With so many online students coming to them with requests for "just a little more time" they've had to put strict boundaries around due dates. If you miss 'em -- tough luck.

So, what if you were born handicapped like me? I've got absolutely no internal clock. No sense of time. I find myself waking up the day of an exam and feeling overwhelming panic when it finally dawns on my crusty brain that 'yep, this is THE DAY'. Your big test. Have you studied? NO! Have you even cracked the book open? NO! Are you a complete imbecile? YES! arggghh....

So, well, I've learned a little... a tiny little.

These are the things that I've done to nudge my pea brain into some semblance of apple pie order...

I've established a routine.

Mondays, I know I've got to start the projects that are due the following Friday.

Mondays are bad days. I don't like them... so I reward myself for having to live through them with a delicious and way too expensive Starbucks.

But first, I have to prep my projects. Once, I've got them started, layed out all pretty-like and ready for work, then I go and get my latte (mocha, one shot of peppermint) then I come back to my desk and dig in. I don't know what it is about the whole Starbucks thing, but without it -- I'd always be one step behind and I think Monday would make me cry.

So make a little routine and reward yourself for good behavior.

Another thing I've done is found a study partner to meet with, on a weekly basis. When you know you're going to actually show off a bit -- to a real live person -- it makes you steady down and actually read that chapter.

I highly reccommend a day-timer or at least a calendar so you can keep track of your assignments and due dates. If you're at all like me, you'll lose that day-timer in the first two weeks.

I have finally settled on a cheap (ten cents at Staples) spiral notebook that I keep right under my keyboard. It works. I just list the projects for the next couple of weeks and jot the dates down next to them. Along with phone numbers, awesome websites, ideas, things I want to look up later, and little hearts and flowers doodles. Fancy!

Now, I'm going to talk about the worst procrastination problem of all. What if you wake up one morning (for me this happens every Thursday) and you really, really, just don't want to do anything at all?

How do you make yourself buckle down and get the work done?

Well, this is a big question and one that hasn't been settled by even the most brilliant philosophers of our time. There are two main theories of remedy here.

1. Start with a baby step and keep making one baby step after another until you've got enough momentum to finish the job.

2. Don't plan to start or finish big jobs on Thursdays.