You might think you know how to push deadlines; in high school, you could probably forget about your essay until the day before it was due (maybe the actual day it was due if you were like me) and sort it out without breaking a sweat.

You probably think you can just keep on going in college the way you did in high school. You might think you’re the best procrastinator there is.

Let me introduce you to the world of college procrastinating. I don’t advise you to continue your ways of putting things off, but if you’re going to do it anyway, allow me to help you out.

You should know, first off, that it’s easy to put things off here. People will try to convince you that it’s a sleepy college town surrounded by a sea of corn and nothingness, but there’s always something to do.

You’re going to be living in a town full of young people 24/7 who will want you to hang out and do anything that’s not your homework, essentially.

Your work may be the kind that will have you not just picking up another TV series to ignore it but instead actually doing literally nothing. Nothing, I mean it. You might stare at a wall in lieu of starting your essay or project. It happens, trust me.

Be organized. Get a calendar, a whiteboard, an assignment book. If you’re going to put things off you better at least know when they’re due. You’re a deadline pusher, not a deadline breaker. You certainly can’t continue to aim for the middle if you fail out.

Find your favorite places to do schoolwork. Go to one of the zillions of libraries on campus. No, they aren’t all full.

Also, don’t go to a bar, the bar is never going to help you with school. The bar doesn’t care about your grades. The bar is inanimate, frankly, and it will never love you back, no matter how much you may love it. Go to the bar after your grades come out because that is when you are going to need to go the bar.

Do not, do not, I repeat, do not give in to the nap. The “15-minutes-I’ll snap right-out-of-it-I’ll-set-my-alarm-no-really-I-will” nap is enemy number one. You think you’re going to pull an all-nighter because you put your essay off until the last possible minute. If you rationalize the nap, it’s already over.

Commit to the all-nighter. Go get a coffee and sit in a public place where you have the chance of embarrassing yourself if you doze off. Do you want to wake up gasping and freak everybody out after having one of those falling-off-a-cliff dreams in a cafe? Get it together.

Overall, you need to take care of yourself. Give yourself the opportunity to succeed by following these steps and by maybe not digging yourself into a hole in the first place.

Charlotte is a sophomore in Media

[email protected]

Tweet: Procrastination is easier, but more dangerous, in college. Learn some tips to successfully put things off. | link