What To Do If You Have A Lot Of Assignments?

Deadlines are referred to as stress-giving things, and with every passing day, slowly and gradually, the deadlines of the assignments come closer and closer. But this does not mean that the final assignment is going with the pace, and at the last moment, most of the assignment is done just before the deadline. There are so many people and some habitual as well as famous procrastinators such as Herman Melville, an American author; Victor Hugo, a French novelist and poet; and Douglas Adams, a British author. As these people create various innovative results, people like us could assume that these procrastinators have found different ways and ideas to meet their deadlines. Victor Hugo, a French novelist and poet, utilised the popular method of focusing on being stripped naked by a servant in the study of his house. The servant had to follow strict orders by returning with the clothes during a pre-arranged hour. While Melville asks his wife to lock him with a chain to his desk so he can complete his Moby Dick. Douglas Adams, a British author, mostly asked publishers to guard him and make him stay by locking the room, glaring acutely till he finished drafting a manuscript.

Taking smaller initiatives if there is a lot of work to do

Any individual writing the assignment always has one thought about keeping up with the assignment and its deadline. If there is a lot of work in the assignment, one needs to start drafting the assignment by taking smaller steps and starting by doing smaller parts of the assignment. For this, they must divide the entire assignment or their workload into small works they can manage.

For instance, if someone is writing an article which lists and details the top universities in the United Kingdom. Assume that the assignment is a draft of a total of 10000 words. With this guideline, one will get stressed by initially applying the principle of taking smaller steps. They will think they don`t have to write an article of 10,000 words at a time but can split their work into smaller parts. The task is to write about 20 universities, and the total word count is 10,000. The task can be divided by writing 500 words for each university. Now, one can start writing the article very easily without getting apprehension and hopelessness.

Breaking the task

Dividing the assignment into smaller parts is good, but it is not good to think there is little work to do. One must be aware of the deadlines and focus on the pitfalls that will lead one to take stress at the last minute. It is important to start working on the assignment on time to submit it on time. One cannot wait for more than one or two weeks to get started with the assignment thinking that it is an easy task. One can also develop new techniques to complete the task by giving themselves a period to complete the smaller part of the assignment. Applying this method will help complete the assignment on time and submit it on the due date. This will end up facing the assignment wholly at a time as the individual doing the assignment was getting frightened due to the assignment’s length and deadline from the beginning.

Allowing oneself to fail

The biggest cause of procrastination is perfectionism and not being lazy. Thomas Alva Edison was a famous inventor of the modern era’s electric bulb and other conveniences and belonged to America. He did not accept that he had not been successful 10,000 times, but he asserted that he had found 10,000 different methods that needed to be revised. This is a valid point. Whether inventors or scientists, or actors working and making brilliant discoveries and performances did not reach greater heights without failing on their way to achieving success, if one is trying to write something about a topic, it may be possible that one may face failure while writing the initial page but can get the idea of trying to do better the next time and, thus, attain success.

Eliminate Distractions

It is important to stop getting distracted when you start writing the assignment. There is a need to put mobile phones on silent. Mobile phones are considered the biggest distractions. And managing time is one of the most important things a procrastinator needs to focus on. And to make yourself come away from those things can help find a way to work on them. The first thing that needs to be done is to identify what makes them feel distracted. Is it their mobile phones making sounds of notifications, or the outside world is distracting them, or is it something else? An individual gets distracted by all these things and other things that should be mentioned.

Once the distraction is identified, there is a need to take actionable steps to take up the opportunity to complete the assignment in a given period. If mobile phones distract them, they can switch off their phones, put them on silent, or give them to their family members. If they are getting distracted by the outside world, they must start meditation, close the window while focusing on work, and stop listening to things that are not useful. They need to be honest with themselves. Being honest with oneself is much more significant because only the person assigned to complete the task knows the value of finishing the assignment.

Lie

When the deadline for any assignment is getting closer and closer, an individual needs to set a personal due date for himself rather than the actual deadline given by the institution. In simpler words, one can lie to themselves that the deadline is their due date, not the date given by the institution. This will help make them complete the work properly or before time. This will also help give extra time to determine if any problem or unexpected issue arises. But, applying this method is only helpful when one believes in his lies, and if they are not gullible, they can only add any emergency to the personal due date. It can be done by changing the passwords of the social media accounts giving back mobile phones to your elders, and getting them back after meeting the deadline and giving the things that will distract you to your parents and start completing the assignment without having any distractions. This will also help in making the assignment more creative. Applying this method can relax you at the last minute of an assignment submission.

Prioritising complex or the important tasks

It may be possible for the individual to ask themselves how they can complete their work. The simplest answer that he can get is by creating an Urgent-Important Matrix. This can help the students to develop a set of skills to manage their time and thus aid students in prioritising various assignments and tasks by completing them first. This matrix can help by prioritising their tasks depending on their importance and urgency. Prioritising may also be felt like a task, but using the following steps will help draft the assignment.

Make a list of all the assignments

• Make four sections on a sheet of paper and label each section as ‘Important and Urgent’, ‘Urgent but not important’, ‘Important but not urgent’ and ‘Not important or urgent’.
• Place the topics of each assignment work on the specific columns depending on the importance and urgency of the assignment.
• Start drafting with the urgent and important topics and start composing them first. These are the topics that need to be on an urgent basis, and the deadlines for these assignments are getting closer with each passing day.
• The next step is to move to the next column of topics, i.e., Important but not urgent works. These assignments are important in the long term, but these have yet to have deadlines getting closer.
• The next step is moving to the next column, i.e., Urgent but unimportant works. These assignments are considered to be urgent and have their deadline getting closer but are not important in the long term.
• Lastly, the last column of the sheet is not urgent or important assignments. The assignments listed under this column are both time sensitive and critical.

Using this Urgent-Important matrix will aid in prioritising the assignment and ensuring that the individual can focus on the critical work first.

Managing time to avoid burnout

A technique called Pomodoro is a type of time management procedure that includes breaking the work into intervals of 25 minutes known as Pomodoros, which is accordingly followed by small breaks. One needs to focus on finishing a particular work in each interval and afterwards take a small break before starting other Pomodoro. This cycle must be repeated until all the assignments have been completed. Ultimately, utilising this method will help in increasing productivity and also help in preventing burnout by providing regular breaks to your brain despite getting a lot of assignments to do.

Seeking help when required (from the teacher)

Taking help from our teacher, friends and families assisted us in numerous ways to complete our assignments and make us understand the concept of the assigned topic. Some steps are discussed below that can help determine when to seek help.

• Identification of problem – What are the actual problems that trouble you from doing your assignments? Is there any difficulty understanding the content or complexities of managing time or something different? Knowing the problem will help in communicating in a better way with teachers, families or even friends.
• Asking the tutor – Students need to contact the teacher for the first time. They can help guide you by understanding your situation and will help in every possible way. The only thing the student needs to do is explain their situation to their teacher better. Knowing the situation the student is dealing with, teachers can help by providing additional materials or extra resources to the students.
• Seeking help from a tutor or others – If the student cannot communicate with their teachers in a better way, they can seek help from their tutor, family or even friends. They can help by providing help in every way possible and also can work and help you at your own pace.
• Utilising the resources provided by the school – Most of the institutions provide their students with study materials or resources which help manage the students’ workload by making them understand the topic. Students must take advantage of the sources provided to them.

Conclusion

This part shows the overall picture of the topic. Being a student is such a difficult task as there is a lot of work given by the institutions for them to complete, along with they have to attend their class and also need their personal space, which is also equally important. If they have a lot of assignments to do, they have to focus on their assignments by breaking them into smaller parts and giving a personal due date for completing the assignment. Also, it can be done by following the steps discussed in the above section. Students must allow themselves to make attempts repeatedly if they fail to complete their work. It is also important for them to eliminate distractions. They must prioritise their work based on the urgency and importance of the assignment. And must focus on managing time so that they can avoid burnout. Also, students should ask for assignment help from online tutors or families or friends who can help them better understand the topic.