A Procrastinator's Guide to April

A Procrastinator's Guide to April

by: Melissa Lanouette


April is that time of years when a restless student most wished to be outside and active but is most chained down by work. The Professors’ Master Plan seems most evil this month, worse even, than homework during Spring Break or the coordination of five simultaneous midterms.



This is the month of term papers and final projects, of, “You’ve had three months to plan for this, no you can’t get an extension!” This is the month to turn in all those late papers that have been piling up since January. However, let a master slacker tell you, it is definitely possible to get this done and still have time to enjoy those lovely and long Spring afternoons. With a few simple steps, you can finish your work in plenty of time to smell the roses.


1) Gauge your teachers. Although all of them want to get your stuff on time, some professors, especially slow graders, won’t mind if it’s a few days late. Use this to your advantage when you have back-to-back due dates.



2) Use your time smartly. The afternoon and evening are important slack times in a schedule, so use the rest of your time wisely. Getting up a two hours early to get some work done works especially well since your brain hasn’t registered that you’re awake yet, and thus, hasn’t started telling you what awesome alternatives you have for doing homework.



3) When you work, work hardcore. It’s easy to get caught in the trap of doing homework/checking your

MySpace/watching a movie/listening to music/playing solitaire, but if you do that, you’ll find that you spend 3 hours “doing your homework” and have gotten nothing done. When you do your homework, do only your homework.



4) Red Bull is your friend. Full-time procrastinators pre-plan all-nighters. One key aspect is study-food. Anything with sugar or caffeine can help, although sugar may lead to crashes (i.e. drooling into your keyboard). My favorite study combo is Dr. Pepper and gummies. Although caffeine isn’t a substitute for real sleep and rest…actually, caffeine is a substitute for real sleep and rest.



5) Napping can be your friend. Although napping to avoid work obviously won’t help you succeed, afternoon napping can make sure you’ve got enough energy in the middle of the night to get work done. In the middle of the night, there are fewer things to grab your attention away from homework.



6) “But I already passed that in!” To be used only as a last resort, on a teacher so scatter-brained that they’ll believe it, this excuse not only works, but it inspires pity and guilt in a teacher. This excuse should only be used once, and on a teacher that has lost papers in the past. I used to pull this in high school frequently, but only used it once in college, because the teacher was taking half the semester off and lost almost everything the class turned in.