We have all experienced that perfect blend of regret, anxiety and panic when the deadline is fast approaching, and yet we can’t seem to start working on that assignment. Unfortunately, procrastination is a real ordeal for many college students, and it can have drastic consequences on their academic performance.

Some experts blame our evolutionary history that has supposedly hardwired us for instant gratification. After all, surviving in the African plains amidst a myriad of predators wasn’t an easy feat in our formative years as a species.

Food was scarce, and hunting animals for survival was both dangerous and energy-consuming. Hence, when our ancestors would come across a food source such as a tree full of berries, the food source had to be consumed right then and there or else another animal might get to it first.

This may also account for disorders such as binge eating, but that is outside the scope of this article. What matters is that procrastination is a serious problem, and it needs addressing.

So, then how would one go about undoing the curse that is procrastination. While there isn’t an instant magical solution to this problem, there are ways in which you can gain back control of your life. Let’s explore.

The Five-Minute Rule 

Have you ever noticed how the first few sentences of a paper you are writing are the hardest?

You can spend an eternity staring at that blank paper. Once you do muster up the will to just write the first few sentences, things just start flowing.

You might have experienced this a day or a few hours before a deadline. How magically your fingers just start to move, and before you know it, you have an entire essay in front of you.

The reason this happens is that we have a backwards understanding of how motivation works. Apparently, it is not the motivation that gets us to do something but the “doing” itself that brings about inspiration.

This line of thinking is what gave us the five-minute rule and its variants. Simply put, the five-minute rule entails that you promise yourself to do something for only five minutes. No matter how cumbersome the task seems, you will sit down and do it for five minutes.

Of course, what ends up happening is that by the time the five minutes end, you find yourself oddly motivated and willing to continue on.

As a college student, if you often find yourself struggling with assignments and meeting deadlines, this neat little hack will cut through that initial resistance.

The Promadora Technique 

No college student or office worker is a stranger to deadlines. There is work that needs to be done, and it needs to be done before a certain date.

A procrastinator doesn’t think like that. Instead, why do all the work now when that new show is out on Netflix. Surely, the work can be done tomorrow because you still have till Friday. Unfortunately, tomorrow never comes, and before you know it, you have reached the deadline with only a few hours to spare.

Sensing the urgency at hand and the dire consequences of not doing the task, you somehow manage to tough it out and complete the task in a couple of hours.

So, why is it then that you spent all those free days doing meaningless things when you could have easily done the work and saved yourself the anxiety?

You see, the main thing missing was the sense of urgency that only came into effect on the last day. Knowing you couldn’t delay it any longer, you took the plunge and did what needed to be done.

The Promadora technique is just that. It draws upon this sense of urgency to get you to do the thing that you have been delaying for so long.

Here is how it works:

Set a timer for 25 minutes on your smartphone and start doing the task. Tell yourself that in this 25-minute time period, you will only do the task and nothing else. Once the timer rings, you can have a 5-minute break and continue this scheme until you are done with your work.

You will be surprised by how well this method works. Not only does the 25-minute timer brings forth a sense of urgency, but the 5-minute break acts as a reward that increases productivity.

Climb the ladder with a to-do list

College students are notorious for not organizing their days. Waking up every day without a clear prior understanding of what you are going to do is a perfect recipe for wasted time. Not only that, but it also throws you down a vicious cycle of “ill do it tomorrow” which culminates in the situation I mentioned above.

How incredulous is it to suggest then that you can beat procrastination by a mere to-do list. Hear me out. When we are going through a rut, and nothing seems interesting or important enough to garner our attention, we tend to wander mindlessly without any clear goal in our mind.

However, at the same time, there are things that you can do with relative ease, such as simple tasks like folding your clothes, cleaning your room, taking a shower or even brushing your teeth. You would do these essential activities anyway, and the good news is that you use these to build up momentum for the more difficult tasks that require your attention.

Here is how you do it. Make a to-do list of the common everyday tasks that I mentioned above. List them in order from the easiest to the hardest, and then introduce things like the essay that you need to submit or the practice test that needs taking.

As you do the simpler tasks at the top of the list, tick them off one by one and let the feeling of accomplishment set in. Tell yourself that you are doing good and then gradually move on to the tasks that you couldn’t find the “motivation” for.

You will be amazed at how once you get into the flow of things, every subsequent task seems easier and easier. You are essentially tricking your brain into being productive by pushing through that initial barrier by doing simpler tasks. Remember that the first step is always the hardest but once you build momentum, it all just falls into place.

Set Artificial Deadlines aka Parkinson’s law 

Simply put, Parkinsons law entails that work will expand to fill the time allotted for its completion. In other words, if you want to get something done on time, set an artificial deadline that is sooner than the actual one.

Say you have a paper due for one of your college classes, and you have five days to complete it. Instead of thinking you have five days, give yourself two days to complete it. For some reason, this method really does work.

Call it trickery or whatever else but thinking you have less time than you actually do increases productivity substantially. You also see a somewhat similar principle at play when taking timed exams. The SAT exam typically runs for three hours, and if you think about it, it’s quite a bit of work crammed into those three hours.

Since you know you have three hours and your future depends on the result, you somehow manage to solve all the questions in time and write essays. Setting an artificial deadline isn’t much different from that.