i have a massive project due in very soon
if i fail this, i fail my whole course
and its nowhere near done. i'm going to fail it
the last three years of my life will have been for nothing
well not nothing, i enjoyed it and i'm less of a social retard than i used to be
but academically speaking, in terms of my career prospects, nothing
i'll be a college dropout who's never had a paying job (or sex)
and all because i didn't start working on this a week ago
i just browsed the internet and wasted my time
all my time
and i'll have to explain this to my family, and to some university staff who've been nothing but helpful while i lied to them
christ.
kids! don't be like me. please.
Just work on your damn project!
Precisely. Stop wasting what time you DO have left on here and GET YOUR FRIGGIN ASS IN GEAR.
>>2-4
i certainly did that, i only came on here because i needed to vent and pretty much anyone who'd listen was in bed
i've now handed the project in, unfortunately as it turns out it was still terrible and i will probably still fail, but hey
at least now i can get some sleep, or maybe get drunk
In future, if you're doing project on the comp, close browser. No distractions then - after all, what are the odds of you being so lazy that you decide to open the browser up again mid-study/working?
Your project is probably less work than you think OP. Just get started on it and it'll be fine.
There's a lot of BS spread around about doing projects over a span of weeks. But there's nothing quite as effective as that last-minute energy rush you get.
Turning in -something- is better than turning nothing. It might be humiliating turning in a paper that's not as long as it should be or badly written, but an F paper will weigh better than a 0 paper.
I tend to wait to the last minute as well with assignments in my uni courses but even I know my absolute limits.
After years of time away at university I've developed certain rules that help in these situations.
Don't study or work in bed, you'll just end up drifting in and out of sleep.
Not all projects have to be perfect. Sometimes there are more pressing academic needs that have to be addressed than whatever it is you're working on at the moment. For example, if you're behind on a project and have an important test the next day, it might be more important to get the project out of the way even if you ended up doing a rather mediocre job in order to study for the exam. If you're going to purposely take a hit on an assignment though, it should be weighed in the context of your grades as a whole and whether you can weather the damage.
Avoid all-nighters except in those situations where it is absolutely necessary for the completion of a critical assignment. By around 5 am the average person is going to start feeling miserable and won't really be capable of doing a competent job anyways. Also, all-nighters tend to leave students incapable of doing much else the next day. If you're studying for a test the next day and then show up to class fatigued then your effectiveness will be severely limited.
Always take a last pass through your assignment before finishing it, whether it's a paper or some other type of project. There's always going to be a few dumb mistakes that are easily solvable and can lead to a higher grade. Sometimes students feel they are in a hurry or just want to be done with an assignment and so they don't review their own work one last time. An assignment that hasn't had a final review stands out like a sore thumb and can give a professor serious doubts about the work ethic of a student. Considering that only ten minutes of very simple work could lead to a significantly higher grade and a much better impression from a professor, it's rather odd that more students don't review their own work.
Don't go near the internet. More than just about any other distraction, the internet has the ability to drain hours and hours of valuable time away. If possible, finding a way to obstruct access to the internet to help stop distractions can be very useful. I have problems with wasting time on the internet as well but sometimes I can still manage to budget my time appropriately.
These methods all seem to help a little bit. They might not do much in getting a project completed in an hour that was assigned two weeks ago but they seem to help over the course of an academic career.