I am. Even as a professional I have found that I still procrastinate with some things. In college, my favorite phrase was “I work best under pressure.” The more accurate phrase would have been, “I work under pressure.” I never gave myself the chance to work any other way, so it was impossible for me to say that it was my best work. Sometimes I still think about how much better my work could have been if I had dedicated more time to it. So, thanks to this blog, I can warn you now and help you avoid these same feelings in the future.

All that to say, we’ve found a simple tool to help keep procrastination to a minimum. Or in other words, a tool to help you manage your time better when it comes to big projects and papers. The University of Minnesota created an Assignment Calculator, you input the current date and the date the assignment is due and out comes a step-by-step plan for completing quality work on-time.

It’s genius. Frankly, I wish I had something like this when I was in college. If you select the subject that the assignment is in, it also personalizes links to help get your research started. Not to mention, if you go to the print friendly version, it makes you a to-do list with boxes to check as you move through the steps.

I encourage you to give this tool a try and give your papers and projects the time they deserve! Then let me know what you think in the comments section… And hopefully, we can all work on breaking this bad habit together.