I am a serial procrastinator. Here is my sorry tale.
I have just finished yr 2 of a 3 yr MSc in Clinical ed.
(With a huge amount of support from my Tutor. )
I've previously done an undergrad diploma in Education, and was the same with each assignment and portfolio I had to hand in, with lots of 5am finishes for assignments due at 9.
All through the MSc course, I have been submitting my assignments at about 1 minute to go.
I was like this in school too, despite parents having v high expectations and my report cards were littered with "Could work much harder" comments
I have had extensions after extension for this last modules assignment (4k words) and actually should have finished this time last year.
My mum got sick last year at submission time, then I had surgery, then my dad had surgery for kidney cancer, then my (useless) colleague resigned and work put off replacing him for months, so I was snowed under and really stressed. But to be honest, I didnt really need much of an excuse.
The board of examiners agreed to let me wait and redo the module and submit this year instead. I attended most of the online tutorials, and was full of good intentions, but somehow managed to watch 2 seasons of Revolution, have the cleanest and tidiest home ever, and miss this years submission date. I actually forgot completely.
My tutor emailed while I was having a rare moment of panic on bank holiday Mon and actualy doing some work, to see how I was getting on, as I would need to submit as board of examiners are meeting on the 22nd of this month, and if I didn't submit I would have to exit the program with a post grad cert.
I told her I should have it finished by the end of that week. She said great, Ill expect it on Friday the 9th.
I immediately relaxed and sat down to watch more crap tv, planned to to a bit more during the week, but didnt, left work early on Thurs expecting to do an all nighter, but ended up in the hospital with my friend and her toddler who had fallen over and split her face open.
No work that night, none on Friday as I was too tired. Goddaughters birthday on the sat, so no more work.
I did some panic writing on Sunday, but kept getting distracted even at that stage, and managed to get cystitis too.
I took monday and tuesday off work, and despite needing to pee about every 5 minutes, I managed to finish and submit by 10pm on the Tuesday.
I emailed my tutor to say "its in, and sorry for the late ubmissionwho replied within about 10 minutes, and I found out last night that I had passed with a B.
The comments on the assignment were all stuff I knew I should have expanded on, so really I need a good kicking. I think if I had actually done it when I needed to, I could have easily got my marks up to an A. But thats the perfect assignment, as opposed to the one I actually handed in.
Now I have to think about my dissertation. Aaagh.