Welcome to a night in the life of a typical high school student: leave school, attend extracurricular activities and sports practice, get home, eat dinner, do some homework, get ready for bed, and suddenly remember the huge project due by 11:59 pm. Unfortunately, this panicked realization is not foreign to the Dubs. Having to cram an intense assignment into a couple of hours is a situation students are put in more often than they would like to admit. Luckily, many high school students have mastered the “art” of procrastination (and the ways in which they can avoid it) and are ready to share their tips and tricks to preventing sleepless nights and securing last-minute As. 

Teenagers already have busy schedules, and with a surplus of homework and projects assigned to them, it’s not surprising that some assignments are pushed off. Junior Caroline Watson is one student who finds herself in procrastination predicaments and has accepted that it is often inevitable. “No matter how hard I try, I somehow always end up frantically doing assignments the night before they are due,” she said. “The pressure of the impending due date ensures I get my work done. If I manage to put my phone away and get some caffeine in me, I typically end up receiving a good grade regardless of when I start.” 

While many view procrastination as inevitable, some students take pride in their abilities to get things done well before the due date and (somehow) manage to maintain a balanced and well-put-together schedule. This is easier said than done, especially with the bounds of work high schoolers receive, but junior Blair Rubinger shows that organization is entirely possible when the rigor of high school is approached in the right ways. “Keeping a planner helps me track when assignments are due and how much work I have to do each day,” she said. “By managing my time, I typically avoid saving assignments for the last second, and I get more sleep.”

While on the outside, high school students may seem to have it all together, on the inside, most students are constantly feeling the stress of a never-ending workload. For many, the best coping mechanism for this stress is to put it off until the last minute, but for others, keeping a schedule is the key to being stress-free. So Dubs, grab your planners, gather your homework, and get to work! (Or just wait until tomorrow).