This one’s for the chronic procrastinators out there. My people! Welcome!

When you have six classes and all of them are hard as hell, you’re bound to have some assignments or tasks that you just don’t want to do. I can never get over that hump. Maybe my self control is just terrible in comparison to others, but if I sit down and try to force myself through an assignment that I don’t have the desire to complete, I end up half-assing it and hating every minute. And when I don’t put forth my fabled 90% effort, my grades tend to be lower.

So, what’s a persistent “Meh, I’ll Do It Later” type to do? How do you manage this type of behavior and still maintain good performance in a high intensity program? Well, my friends…I’ve found a way. Despite what every guidance counselor has ever told you, it’s totally possible to be a successful procrastinator. I’m not saying it’s ideal or anything, but when you’re irreparably stuck in this personality type like I am, you’re forced to work with what you’ve got.

Step 1: Be Organized

Just take my word for it: you cannot pull this kind of study strategy off unless you are hyper organized. The hang-up is that procrastinators also tend to be woefully helter-skelter too, so you’re going to have to pick one or the other. Sorry.

The biggiest piece of this puzzle is that you need to know exactly when everything is due. For you working stiffs, that translates to “you need to know exactly when your deadlines are.” Get a desk calendar and write everything in bright red Sharpie if you have to. In order to be a successful procrastinator and push things off until the last minute, you need to know where the last minute actually lives.

Organization goes far deeper than a list of dates, though. You need to be able to quickly locate your resources and efficiently put them to use. The invariable Type-A crowd will spend 8 hours on a paper that you can whip out in 1.5 if you really put your mind to it. You see, they merely adopted stress. You were born in it. Molded by it. You never completed an assignment before midnight until you were already a man. That kind of frenzied efficiency is a powerful tool to be utilized…but make it easier on yourself by laying your workbench out meticulously in advance.

Step 2: Screw Around Wisely

The key to successful procrastination is to have a very clear idea of what you absolutely despise more than anything else. Do you hate doing laundry more than the fires of Hades? Maybe mowing the lawn makes you want to punt kittens. Inevitably you’ll have one class or task that makes you want to scream more than every other activity. If you’re a student, it’s better if that thing is non-schoolwork related, so dig deep for that chore that you absolutely cannot stand.

For me, it’s cleaning bathrooms and/or doing the dishes. Man…I hate that shit. In fact, I hate it so much that I’d rather sit at my desk and do my utterly boring, totally useless Clinical Informatics coursework than stick my hands in a toilet to clean it. I mean…I’d rather run my hair through a pasta machine than do those things too, and homework is infinitely more pleasant than that scenario.

I’ve found that as long as I can procrastinate something I hate with something I hate moderately less, I’m able to find the motivation to get my stuff done. Is that self-deception? Maybe. Personally, I consider it to be more along the lines of “screwing around wisely.” But it works for me, so give it a try. You might find it surprisingly effective.

Step 3: Make Pavlov Proud

Establish a way to reward yourself when you do manage to finish something. If you don’t feel any sense of accomplishment after you complete a required task, then you’re less likely to move onto the next thing you need to do, and more likely to say “fuck this” and go play Halo 4 instead.

For me, I do this through lists. If I break every assignment down into teeny tiny parts like so, that means I get to cross things off about every 2.6 milliseconds. It shows me verifiable evidence of progress, and for some reason I get a sort of gleeful satisfaction from striking through a line item. Few people are as nerdy as I am, so you’ll probably have to find something else.

Try chocolate.

So there you go. If you’ve been trying to shake off your procrastinator personality for decades and you’ve never been successfully able to do so, it might be time to just embrace it. Personally, I think it can make you a ballin’ multitasker if you manage it efficiently.

Try employing these steps and see what it gets you. And if you have anything to add after you try it, drop me a comment. I’d love to hear about how it went.