You must be able to eat assignment deadlines as a student. Other than being instrumental in your grades, beating deadlines show that you observe time and manage yourself well. It is usually not an easy task to keep time and submit your assignment on time.
Strategies to Beat Assignment Deadlines
1. Start Immediately
Always start an assignment immediately you receive it. Avoid postponements which encourage more postponements. Starting your assignment early will help you stay focused throughout your assignment.
Make sure that you don’t start early and stop. This will be the same as postponing. Start your assignments early and finish them early.
2. Avoid Multitasking
Avoid doing multiple assignments at a time. It is usually easy to do each assignment on its own than combining many. Combining many assignments at a time will lower your productivity and concentration.
You are likely to spend more time on the assignment as compared to doing each at a time. Multitasking can easily make you use mix-up ideas in assignments.
Correcting these mistakes consume time and may cause unnecessary delays that can lead to late assignment submissions. If you have several assignments, do not panic.
Plan on how you will handle each on its own. It will be easier and you will not strain your mind. You are likely to finish all the assignments on time.
3. Take Timely Breaks
Doing an assignment continuously can drain your energy and tire your brain. Brain fatigue lowers your productivity and concentration. This is may make you take longer breaks than expected.
Taking timely breaks is important. You can give yourself a one or two-hour break and then resume doing your assignment. Reward yourself these breaks.
They will help you complete your work on time as well as produce quality work. Always ensure the breaks are not too long.
Long breaks can make you focus on other things and start postponing your assignments which may expand the duration you take to complete your assignments.
4. Make a Schedule
This is very important in making sure that you manage your time well and beat deadlines. Time management requires you to be organized. This is why you will need a timetable or a schedule.
Make a schedule on how long you will work on your assignment in a day and complete it using the deadline provided and the amount of work you are required to do as the determining factors.
Diaries, calendars, and print timetables can help you make proper schedules for your assignments. Following your schedule to the latter will help you keep your work and time organized and avoid last-minute rushes.
5. Set Personal Homework Deadlines
Using the deadline set by the instructor is a bit risky. Something might come up that may delay you and finding time to fix it may be hard. This can be avoided by setting your deadline.
Use the instructor’s deadline to set your own. It can be a day or week before the actual deadline. If there are hitches, you will have plenty of time to fix them.
An early deadline will also avoid you from final day rushes. Mistakes that may negatively affect your grade will also be avoided.
6. Write During Sensible Times and Places
Some students are fond of doing their assignments late in the night. This may work for some students and be counterproductive to other students.
It is good to do your assignments during the day when your brain is not exhausted. The night of a day that has been full of lectures and activities is not good to do your assignment.
The library is a more conducive environment for doing your assignments compared to your room. Areas, where you can see students around you working, will help maintain your positivity and productivity.
7. Set Targets to Complete your Homework
Apart from personal deadlines, targets will also help you complete your assignment in time. To set targets you can break down a project into individual steps and set the days that each step should be completed.
In a research proposal, for example, you can set dates where the introduction, literature review, and methodology parts are to be completed.
This also helps you manage and pass your projects because you can send regular drafts to your lecturer for feedback.
8. Keep Away Distractions
With the advancement of technology, several distractions may hinder students from concentrating and finishing their assignments before the deadline. Mobile phones are owned by many students.
The access to social media completely withdraws the student’s attention from the assignment. Video games are also very popular. Also, avoid any excuses for late homework unless when such are genuine and necessary.
Students spend hours and hours playing video games and forget about their assignments. Avoiding such distractions increases your chances of finishing assignments early.
9. Online Writing Services
This is an option for students who can’t get time to do their assignments. If you provide for yourself as a student, you may not get enough time to do your assignment and work.
Online writing services can be a good option. All you will need is to place an order and wait for the assignment to be done and delivered as you continue with your job.
Why Students get Late with Assignments
1. Early Deadlines
Some instructors do not consider that their students have other activities to do and give them heavy assignments which are to be completed in a short period.
Not every student will get to complete the assignments. Instructors should always be considerate when setting deadlines for their assignments.
2. Distractions
A lot of students spend much time on social media and video games and forget that there is an assignment which needs to be done. Video games and social media platforms are addictive.
If a student doesn’t limit the use of these platforms they are likely to have difficulties completing their assignments because those activities take the most time of their day.
3. Postponing Assignments
Students who see that they have a lot of time to do the assignment and keep postponing it are likely to postpone the assignment to a point where completing the assignment on time is something next to impossible.
Such students will panic and rush to do their assignments. Even if they can complete it, the assignment is likely to be shoddy.
4. Unforeseen Events
Events that the students can’t control can hinder them from completing an assignment before the deadline approaches. These are events that affect everyone or at least most people, not just the student.
Sickness and accidents can make a student lose concentration and fail to complete an assignment on time. Power outages also can delay assignment submission by students. This is one of the reasons why students should not be penalized for late homework, at least not until the instructor establishes the reason for lateness.
5. Lack of Time Management
Students who don’t manage their time well are likely not to meet the deadlines. Managing time involves setting personal deadlines and personal targets considering the workload and time given by the instructor.
Time management without these mini targets is hard. Disorganization may lead to late submissions. Below, find a few tools that I found to be very helpful to manage your time and help finish your assignments before the due date.
Best free time Planning Apps for Students
Trello
This app helps students organize projects that they are working on. With the Trello app, you can easily separate tasks on your to-do list, tasks that you have completed, and tasks that you are still working on.
Evernote
This app helps keep your assignment and thoughts organized. You can easily sync checklists and notes across devices enabling the switch of devices you are working with without losing any information.
Calendars
Calendars are apps available on all devices. Using calendars, you can plan the days that you will use to tackle your assignment. You can also set a time for each task which you can clear once you are done.
Clocks
This is a free app on Android and iOS. Through this app, students can set alarms that remind them of the time they have set to do their assignments.
I am an educational writer and blogger focussing on tech, education, and life improvement.