Article 2: Timing

I didn't plan on posting today. However, as I'm sitting in the computer lab, something devastating happened. I noticed something was different in the room. At first, I didn't notice that the room suddenly got more quiet. The humming of the printers spitting out print jobs is so constant in campus computer labs that it becomes white noise and the printers had stopped, leaving the room with only the eerie hum of the computers' whirling hard disks and a few low conversations.

I realized something in that moment. What was the biggest problem I've had turning in assignments? Timing. So often I procrastinate with important papers and count on everything working out perfectly. The technicians in the lab announced that the printers being down was a campus wide problem and nothing was registering. What if I had needed to turn in a paper? I'd be S.O.L.

When something is due, you have only one thing that you can rely on and that is your self. Don't trust that the computer lab won't be packed, that the printers will be working and that your flash drive will be working.

Here's my trick for this article: Set your own due dates. Make something due to yourself a few days before it is due to your professors. If you set all of your due dates a week early, there is no additional work load or timing problems. You're doing the same work as you would on a normal schedule, its just done a lot earlier. A lot of the time, you can pick up some bonus points by turning in assignments early. There is very little disadvantage to doing work ahead of time (if you have weekly quizzes, for instance, you may be too far ahead and forget some things), but the advantages are far more substantial.