The Promodoro Technique (Eve Curras)

    I think it's time I come clean.  I have been suffering from a harrowing disease all my life.  It began when I first entered kindergarten, and I have yet to come to terms with exactly why I have had to suffer these long years.  This illness I'm burdened with is time-consuming, exhausting, and downright impractical.  You might be wondering what exactly I suffer from.  I assure you, it is a lot more common than what you might be thinking.  I, like many of my fellow peers, teachers and elders, am a victim of procrastination.

    As I said previously, this all began at the keen age of five.  Even then I enjoyed flirting with the boundaries of time.  All my live I have resented authority and any obligation that does not comply with my wants.  Although you might be scoffing at my referring to procrastination as a disease, there have been times in my life where it has caused me physical pain.  My English teacher once kicked my shins because I incessantly right my papers at the very last minute.  Although she did not actually kick me, I live in constant fear.

    One day when I was putting off, yet another English assignment, I decided that my work-technique was in dire need of change.  Instead of beginning the assignment, I decided to look up videos on how to cure procrastination.  (true story)  After around two hours of "research," I stumbled upon an interesting and simplistic solution for all the time-benders out there.  It's called The Promodoro Technique.  The Promodoro technique tackles basically the biggest issue in the mind of procrastinators, which is simply beginning.  It was developed in the 1980s by a man named Francesco Cirillo.  The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally twenty-five minutes in length, separated by short breaks.  Although extremely simple, this method worked wonders.

    My biggest problem with schoolwork is simply starting the assignments.  I can write for hours upon hours, but the idea or writing an introductory paragraph makes me cringe.  Using the Promodoro technique, which demands twenty-five minutes of your undivided attention, I found that I had no choice but to push through.  The writing-process takes care of the rest.

    My reason in writing this blog post it to help all of my fellow peers who struggle with time-managment.  I know that life is hard and balancing academics, extra-circulars meanwhile trying to get eight hours of sleep is nearly impossible, but there are methods to make your life easier.  Whoever is reading this, go set a timer.  Do whatever work you have been painfully ignoring and go on with life.  And also, don't lie to yourself that you're doing "research" on procrastination.  Face it-- you have a problem.  Get off of YouTube.

Why you Shouldn't Procrastinate by Emma Bova

        As a habitual procrastinator, I've learned over the years that putting things off until the last minute is not always best. In fact it might just lead to you wanting to pull out all your hair and having a mental breakdown a twelve o'clock A.M. while you're struggling to finish all of your assignments that you've been completely and utterly aware of for at least two weeks. At the time, you may think something like "eh, I'd rather watch Netflix," or "eh, its not even due tomorrow anyway," however, when the night that you need to buckle down and finish your work comes, you end up having a panic attack and wish you had just gotten the assignment over with (currently what I am doing at this very moment in approximately four classes). So, if anyone needs some helpful tips on why procrastination is the origin of all evil, read below :).
        If you're typing an essay, ideas probably won't automatically start flowing onto the keyboard; you're going to need some time to plan your essay and gather details to make your essay the best it can be. If you put a writing assignment off until the last night possible, it might take awhile to think of an idea or a topic, lessening your time to actually type it even more. Additionally, the less time you have to finish an assignment, the more rushed the assignment will feel to anyone who is reading it. That is why taking time to plan out an essay is always best; save the last night for last minute revisions to make sure there are no grammatical or spelling errors.
        You could run out of time! Nowadays in our technologically advanced world, many classrooms use google classroom, which is essentially a website by google that allows teachers to post assignments for students online, and set them due for a certain date and time, so basically a classroom online (hence the obvious name). Remember back in middle school when, if you forgot to do your homework the night before and you were afraid of getting your butt whooped by the teacher your were terrified of (cough, Mr. Pergola), you'd simply do the homework during lunch and nobody would ever know that you didn't actually do it the night before, but now, if the work is turned in past seven o'clock A.M. it's late. No going back now. You just have to sit in a pool of your own shame and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Big thank you to whoever created google classroom (not against saving paper, but it makes life very difficult at times).
        Two words: sleep deprived. Now, many teens are sleep deprived for other reasons besides staying up and doing homework, but if you look at a fellow like me with no social life, I am most likely tired because I waited until the last minute to do all of my assignments, and was up until one A.M trying to rush through it all. The average teens need about 8-9 hours of sleep a night, and (speaking from my personal experience of falling asleep in biology whenever I had it first period last year), teens usually can not and refuse to focus if they are not functioning on enough sleep. Not to mention, grumpy. So do yourselves and everyone else a favor and, do your homework early, get it out of the way.
        If anyone can guess, this essay is being directed towards myself, as I am currently writing this at the last minute, with five other homework assignments to do. However I can say that I learned a good lesson while typing this and I hope anyone else who reads this does too, because procrastination will truly make you a very stressed out and unhappy person. And think, if you get your work done early, you can relax and just watch everyone else stress about that work while you're sitting there like "ha ha... I already finished, have fun with that." And you will truly feel like the most powerful person in the world.

An Apology Letter by Kamryn Foster

Dear Audience,
         As y'all may know, the authors of Blog It On is a high school class, and we have a rotation on who writes a post everyday. Now, as all high schoolers do, we procrastinate. Meaning, I am so very sorry that I didn't write my blog post on time. If you didn't notice, there wasn't an entry for Tuesday, November 29th, which was my day. And so, this is a promise to our readers, my fellow peers, and my teacher, that I will never dismiss an assignment like this again.
        My Sincerest Apologies,
               Kamryn Foster