January 10th. January 15th. January 30th. These dates are coming closer than your stomach is to bursting the button off your jeans during Christmas dinner (rookie mistake, sweatpants are a must during any big meal.) It’s almost impossible to divide your time equally between watching Elf on T.V for the fifteenth time and attempting to eloquently compare yourself to an iPad (please don’t compare yourself to an iPad in a college application essay). Here are three sure-fire ways to meet your college application deadlines and still watch the Times Square Ball drop. Tangent: New Year’s Eve, the movie, sucked.
1. Make A Timeline: If you don’t give yourself very specific deadlines, you will NEVER meet them. You’ll drag out the essays and then do a cruddy job while turning something in at 11:59 AM on January 10th. Your deadlines should include what part of your essay needs to be complete, what day it needs to be complete and what time it needs to be complete. Example:
- First draft: December 28th. 3 PM.
- Second draft: December 30th. 3 PM
- Reading it out-loud to Mom: January 1st. 11 AM.
- Final edits: January 2nd. Noon.
- Submit: January 3rd . 5 PM.
No one should take seven days to write 500 words, but you still need to give yourself a night to sleep on what you wrote. What sounds good today can sound terrible tomorrow..
2. Spend More Time Editing than Writing: Often times you’ll write a first draft and think you just need to read over what you wrote for some grammatical imperfections. The best essays have been rewritten so that every detail, every adjective, and every word play sounds fresh. Edit then re-edit. Make sure you have another great writer proof your work.
3. Schedule in Full Fun Days: Everyone needs a break during the holidays. If you spend every single day working on your essays, you’ll start to hate them. It’ll show up in your work. Most of the time, you know you’re just going to be stalking people’s holiday photos on Facebook instead of actually writing anyway. It’ll make you feel like you’ve been “working” forever. Take December 25th and December 31st completely off if you want. Make time for you, your family, presents and gingerbread cookies.
Happy Holidays Friends!
