As I sit up my kitchen side, staring at my laptop screen while desperately trying to make a start on an assignment, I felt like now was the best time to write a post about procrastination.

Procrastination is something I am almost certain that everyone experiences at some point in their university lives (or life in general), and for some of us, it happens on the daily. This can cause a bit of a tricky situation, where that inability to force ourselves to do an assignment only ends up causing a huge amount of stress in the long run. At the time, it's so difficult to convince yourself that you'll be suffering much more from the decisions you are making now. Even if you're aware of that fact, for some reason, your brain just doesn't want to process that fact and take action. So instead, we continue to sit and stare at a blank word document and waste a whole day doing absolutely nothing, out of guilt for doing anything but that.

It doesn't really make sense when you think about it. So fair enough, it's going to be one of those days where you just can't produce a single sentence without checking your phone or staring out of the window. However, why should that mean that we waste a whole day doing absolutely nothing because of it? I don't know about you but when I find myself procrastinating, I'll find small and useless things to do while just sitting in front of that piece of work. For some reason, I feel guilty if I step away from my laptop screen and do something a little more productive, because then I'm no longer paying any attention to the assignment that should be in front of me. So as a result, I just end up wasting a whole day sat in front of my laptop screen, doing absolutely nothing, but still manage to feel a sense of achievement at the fact that I 'tried', when in actual fact, I just wasted a day.

That's where learning how to deal with procrastination can really come in handy. Being able to notice when you're doing it and pull away from the guilt you experience by not doing your work, and distract your mind by doing something else instead.
It's about learning to pull yourself away from that blank word document and teach your mind that it's okay to step away if you're incapable of being productive. It's okay to take a couple of hours off, or even a whole day because as a result, you'll be allowing yourself time to do something more enjoyable and also productive with that time. In addition, that time away may even provide you with a little motivation to sit down and get a few paragraphs written over a few days. Or it may even give you enough motivation to get the whole thing finished way before the deadline date, and escape all that last minute stress.

Procrastination can be incredibly difficult to live with because it consumes you with guilt, which leads to frustration, which ends up adding to the procrastination you are already experiencing.
Learning to accept you're having an off day is the key to overcoming it.
Learning to appreciate writing a few sentences as a success when you're really struggling, is the best way to remove the guilt and to keep on going.
Learning to allow yourself some time away from those deadlines to refresh your mind, can really help avoid those few days of stress as you reach a final deadline and still have a tonne of the assignment left to complete.

Procrastination can be difficult to live with, but it is possible to learn to live with it too. It's all about training your mind to remove the guilt you feel and instead, feel that time with something else productive that you're going to gain a little more enjoyment from until you regain your motivation!

....

So this year I conquered a pretty big milestone in my life and that was moving away from home for the first time!

I am currently a second year Psychology student and as my University is only about 40 minutes away from my home, I remained at home for my first year.

However, in my second year I decided the commuting was getting a little too much and I decided to live away from home in a house with my friends.

The first week was the toughest and took a lot of getting used to. Living in a new house was strange enough but living in a city in comparison to the countryside was a whole different world.

Just being away from home and my family who all live so close to me was the hardest part as it was extremely difficult not seeing them everyday.

However, eventually I got used to it and as soon as lectures began I was straight back into routine and settled in quickly.


I have now been living away from home for 12 weeks and that time has just flown by. It has been the most amazing experience while at the same time being a complete roller coaster of emotions, all of which I have managed to get through!

I love the independence and freedom of living in a city. The incredible feeling of being able to just nip to town if I want to, with it being two minutes walking distance me and my friend have found ourselves spending a lot of time there.


I also love having the cinema so close by too! I don't think I have ever seen so many movies in such a short space of time.

Cooking dinner for myself has also not been such an issue. I thought I would absolutely hate it and never be bothered but it's actually nice to have the freedom to have exactly what I want, when I want. Food shopping has now become one of my favourite things - a sign of growing up!

Adult home duties such as cleaning, clothes washing and doing the washing up haven't been my favourite thing. I don't think cleaning will ever be a fun task but you just make of it what you can.
They tend to be the chores I end up doing on a Friday. I finish at 2pm so it gives me a good few hours in the afternoon to put my adult head on and get to work.

Living in the company of my friend 24/7 has also been so much fun! Living with friends in general is just the best experience ever. I know some people say you should never live with a bestfriend because it will ruin the friendship but I don't think that's true. It depends on the person but I definitely think it can make you closer.

Me and my friend literally do everything together, we even have every class at Uni together and we've managed to not drive one another insane yet!

We have traditions throughout the week too, including our date night Tuesday - basically where we go out for dinner every Tuesday instead of cooking. We also ensure to take regular trips to the cinema and shopping too - which at the beginning of the year were a Wednesday tradition but have now turned into an everyday thing, oops.


Living away from my family as I mentioned was difficult at the start, however you just get used to it. I have weekly phone calls with my mum and sister and keep in touch with others by text. You gain so much independence and confidence while living away that you eventually become less dependent on your family and learn to go at it alone. I also think it gives you the advantage of having the best of both worlds; you can live away, doing your own thing and go home and visit your family when you want to.

For anyone thinking of moving away from home, whether that be for Uni or personal reasons, I say go for it! It shapes you into a completely different person and takes you out of that routine you have got so use to at home. It has also made me realise how much more to life there is outside of a village in the countryside... so I definitely will be remain living in a city!