If you’re procrastinating over something, start the very first, small thing. And only the first thing.

• If it’s a report, write the first sentance (”This report descibes my industry placement at PCs R Us.”).
• If it’s a presentation, prepare the first few words (”Hi, my name is Kim.”).
• If it’s a programme, write the first part of the header ( /* foo.php written by Kim 12/3/2008 */ ).

That’s all. Honest.

Why this works:

1. Once you’ve written the first bit, chances are you’ll start thinking about the next bit, then the next bit, and before you know you’ve done a whole lot of it.

2.It’s much easier to start a very small task (one sentance), than a large and undefined task (writing a whole report).

3. Psychologically, you’re giving yourself an easy “win”. If you write just one sentance, you’ve done what you promised. You can then shut down the document and go play World of Warcraft, feeling good about yourself. This makes it easier to start again next time.

Of course, this technique only helps you overcome procrastination, not finish the whole task on time. Next time you’ll have to do the second small task

So - what are you waiting for?

1. Break the work into tasks. In my case this is: do literature review; write first draft; write second draft; write conclusion, introduction and abstract; and polish.

2. Estimate how long each task will take you. Be generous here – it’s better to have spare time than run late. My estimates were 2 days for the literature review (I already had a lot of information), one day for the first draft, one day for the 2nd draft, and one day to polish.

3. Work out when you could start and finish if you started each task on the earliest possible date from today. I started on February 18th, and can do research every Friday, so my dates went like this:

4. Adjust to meet the due date. Unfortunately, that’s March 14th. If I get up early Saturday morning, I can do a full day’s work by lunchtime, so that gives me an extra day a week. Now my plan looks like this:

This also gives me some slack time in case things don’t go as planned – although not a lot.

5. Monitor your progress and adjust the plan as needed. The literature review took an extra day, so I had to find time during the week to work on it. I’m half way through the 2nd draft, and it’s looking good – but it’s March 2nd, so I need to finish that today (not a planned working day) to stay on track. Why did this happen? Because that’s life. I didn’t know about the deadline until recently (correction – I didn’t think to find out about the deadline til recently), I had hoped to work on it during the week, but in the first few weeks of the semester that’s impossible… other things get in the way. Sound familiar?

To get an even better plan:

6. Work out the latest start dates as well: From the deadline, work backwards -

7. Put reminder notes in your diary in big red letters – 8th Feb – Must start literature review today!!!! 15 Feb – must finish literature review today!!! That way you won’t let things slip pas those dates, because you know in advance that you have to start on those dates to finish on time.

Try it for yourself – it only takes a few minutes, and saves a lot of panic at the end.