Curing Senioritis

Admit it. You have either spent the last 2 hours stalking random people’s photos on Facebook or have been caught yet again in that time-warping trap of video games. Spring is bound to show itself soon, and the annual plague is surely going to get worse. Senioritis, the procrastination disease that affects school work and pretty much anything that involves intellectual thinking, has infected even the most ambitious students. If it has not infected you yet, your time will come soon enough. It is killing me right now just to write this Utmost Trouble piece. The hardest part to getting school work completed, is the thought that you have to actually get it completed. The “actually completing it” part is not so bad. What my fellow seniors need nowadays is motivation. These few pieces of advice may not immediately cure yourself of Senioritis, but hopefully these tips will provide you with the best medicine for it: motivation.

#1 Start out with a To-Do list. My mom used to make me do these all the time, usually to organize the family’s tasks for spring cleaning. She may have caused a bad reputation for them in my family, but To-Do lists really are effective. I make one every day after school, and it gives me a sort of perspective on what I want to get done each day. List everything (especially school work and household chores) on a piece of paper that you hope to get done today. These set small goals to make your tasks seem reachable. I usually start with the easiest things first, or things that take the shortest time to accomplish. But the order you complete your tasks is completely up to you. Make a game out of it to see how many things you can complete in a certain amount of time. It is surprising just how satisfying checking off an item on a To-Do list feels. It helps you visualize what you got done in one day, which makes you feel productive and happy inside!

#2 Alternate fun things with things you must do. Once you have listed “must do” items down on your To-Do list, think of fun things that you would like to do that day. For instance, “make a dessert” or “read 10 pages in a book.” Now, alternate between doing a “must do” task and a “fun” task. A phone timer is a perfect tool for this. I usually set my timer for 25 minutes to work on a “must do,” then set it for 5 minutes to do a “fun.” Those 5 minutes may not seem like much, but they are really helpful in resetting your motivation.

#3 DO NOT stay up late! If you happen to not finish all your work for the next day, do not stay up late trying to finish it all. Sleepiness is the number one focus-killer. It is better to go to bed at a decent time, wake up early, and finish what you had left of the previous day, than to try to finish it all by staying up until 2 in the morning. I have had way too many friends complain about not getting enough sleep one night, and then the next day they have trouble focusing in class. Staying up late will only backfire on you the next day. Sleep resets your brain, so doing work early in the morning before school is better than doing it late at night. It increases your focus and decreases your frustration level.


We have a little over 2 months until graduation, but if you are planning to attend college this year, do not lose focus. Don’t forget that colleges review your end-of-the-year transcripts, and many students’ grades begin to drop when graduation nears. Even those of you who are not planning on going to college should not lose focus. Procrastination, or choosing not to do work at all, will just stress you out more. Make these last months of high school the best, by not procrastinating! 🙂