Procrastination Contest: Entry #3

This is the third of our top five entries for the procrastination contest. This tip comes from ELI student Lisa Cotts.

My #1 tip to help avoid procrastination and stay focused is to daydream. When I don't feel like doing school work or I think something else needs to be done instead, I daydream for a few minutes about how happy I will feel when I receive my diploma with my husband, my kids, my family and friends all watching and cheering me on.

Knowing my kids are watching me is so powerful. So often they will do as you do and not what they are instructed. I know they are learning to value a good education by watching me, and they know that it must be important or their 40-year-old mother probably wouldn't be doing it. I am amused when they ask if I have class today, too, or if I have more homework than they do. I get to be my kids' role model every day, but there are very few chances I will ever have to show them something more important than dreaming big, chasing your dreams, and being willing to work hard to achieve them.

Almost everyone would rather be doing something other than school work, but how many opportunities are you going to have to get it done on time? Just one. The best advice one of my professors gave me recently is treat your class like a job, if you have addiction issues deal with them, put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. That advice, coupled with the dream we all probably have had at least once in our lifetime about sitting in class taking an exam that we have not even cracked a book for yet is enough to keep me on the straight and narrow. And by the way, in this dream, if you are still wearing clothes (even if they are your puppy p.j.'s) consider yourself lucky!