With midterms finally under our belt and finals creeping up around the corner (yikes!), we can’t help but notice that we’re spending more and more time on Netflix and Pinterest and less and less time on our actual assignments. While curating your secret wedding board is definitely important (are you more of a flouncy princess or mermaid dress kind of bride?), it’s definitely not urgent; you, my friend, have fallen victim to the dreaded Procrastination Fever.
1. BAND
One of the best ways to avoid procrastination is to stay ultra-organized and be ultra-time-effective. That means getting the things you need to get done quickly and efficiently so that you don’t waste hours on little tasks that clog up your to-do list. The longer your to-do list looks, the more daunting it seems - that’s why time-saving organizational apps like BAND will become your lifesavers this semester!
BAND, the group communicating app, allows you to stay social, organized, and in touch with the groups that matter in your life. You can use BAND to stay in touch with your family, your college newspaper crew, the club that you’re leading, your sorority or any other group and organize activities, meetings, study sessions and more. The app allows you to poll others in the group (which would come in handy when you’re trying to decide on the theme of your group project or where to get dinner after next week’s study session), file-share PDFs and Dropbox files (which works well for borrowing your friend’s notes or collaborating on presentations), create group calendars, initiate group chats and more. Plus, it’s also accessible on desktop. Can you imagine how much quicker and easier your study sessions will go?!
The more speedily you’re able to get these organizational issues and time-consuming meetings out of the way, the less you’ll be able to procrastinate (and the less daunting your to-do list will seem)! Download BAND now to join the 30 million users!
2. Finish
Speaking of to-do lists, there’s no better way to avoid procrastination (especially when you’re hearing the siren call of a Scandal marathon) than creating a top-notch to-do list. It allows you to see everything you need to get done (and when) so that you can prioritize. Plus, when you can read in black and white what big tasks need to be accomplished before the end of the night, you’re much less likely to underestimate your work and take Insta feed-browsing breaks.
That’s where Finish comes in! Originally developed by teenagers to help high schoolers like themselves stop procrastinating, Finish allows you prioritize tasks as short-term, medium-term or long-term and define time limits; the app then reminds you based on those time frames. Never experience one of those, “What do you mean there was an essay due today?!” moments again!
3. Yelling Mom
Nothing makes you hustle quite like a nagging mother, if only because you want the nagging to stop. That’s the logic behind the app Yelling Mom, which follows many of the same basic principles as other time-saving apps (namely, the reminding-you-to-do-stuff-on-time principle), but it does so in a much more persuasive (aggressive?) manner: by sending you obnoxious reminders in the form of sirens or other loud noises. Kind of like yelling, only not your actual mother (because she definitely deserves a break).
Hey, it’s a heck of a lot harder to procrastinate guiltlessly by shopping online or painting your nails when your phone is literally (OK, metaphorically) nagging you to get to work. Talk about killing your procrastination buzz!
Usually, we accept our procrastination impulses without question. We don’t wonder why we feel compelled to start taking “Which country should you live in?” quizzes while attempting to crank out a term paper in the library; we just do it. Still, it may be that you’re actually being driven to procrastinate, and wouldn’t it be nice to blame anyone but yourself? Instead, blame the noise and distractions around you, especially when you’re working in the lib.
The solution? White Noise Lite, which allows you to drown out all of those distractions and listen instead to relaxing, stress-reducing white noises (so many different ambiances to choose from!) that won’t cause your mind to wander. Without anything to distract you, you can focus your full attention on the task at hand and get it done ASAP. You may never discover which nation you’re destined to live in, but hey, at least you’ll pass Psych. 101!
5. SelfControl
SelfControl isn’t a mobile app, but it’s an app nonetheless, and a super helpful one at that. For the diehard procrastinator who simply can’t trust herself to access the Internet without Pinning something, adding to a wish list or back-stalking herself on Facebook, SelfControl is the answer. It lets you block your own access to anything on the Internet that you find distracting, which means that when you try to open Pinterest during your study session, you simply won’t be able to. Talk about procrastination-blocking. You just set a timer during which the sites of your choosing will be on a blacklist, and they won’t be freed from the blacklist (and accessible to you) until time’s up. It may seem difficult, but trust us: you can survive a couple of hours without checking for notifications, we swear!
Don’t let procrastination get the best of you, even when you wish it would (everyone knows a solid Breaking Bad marathon is infinitely more engaging than reading primary sources, at least in most cases). Still, you have a job to do: graduate college. Once you have those A’s under your belt this semester, you’ll be able to procrastinate again until your heart desires! Or, you know, until next semester.