I’m a procrastinator; I fully take responsibility for that. Up until recently, I was a successful one. That sounds ludicrous but hear me out. All during my academia period, I was able to load up on Starbucks and bust out any assignment (be it a paper, math equations, etc.) literally hours before it was due. Maybe it was the thrill of the “do or die” experience, but procrastination was my friend.  Plus I never really had any backlash from it.

On top of being a procrastinator, I’m incredibly charismatic. For some reason, my professors, bosses, friends’ parents all seem to think I was awesome. So I was able to charm my way into getting things done, or if I was a little late professors would give me the benefit of the doubt.  I was having my cake and eating it too. That is, until recently when reality bitch slapped me in the face.

When I entered the “adult world”, ie a fulltime job, my procrastination skills began to rear their ugly head. All of a sudden, my lack of preparation and preference of turning things in late were not acceptable. (No matter how cute my smile or “legit” my excuse was. For the first time I was being held accountable for my irresponsibility and I did not like it at all. I began experiencing stress, fear, anxiety, and I just became frozen. Whenever I needed to get something on a deadline I would just freeze and do nothing. It really brought me down.

Recently, I decided to get in gear and start making a schedule for myself. I now have a white board that has my entire schedule for the day. It took me a bit to commit but for the past week, I have been following it religiously. I have to admit it feels amazing to be on top of everything. I really like being able to end the day knowing that I accomplished what I set out to do. I also do things better because I took the time to do it right instead of doing a rush job. So here’s to putting procrastination aside and being organized!