What to Do If You Get Behind
Despite your best efforts, you may find yourself slipping behind. Perhaps you misjudged the amount of time to allow for a certain part of your project. It may have been a very tight schedule to begin with. Maybe something happened in your life that completely ruined your concentration for a period of time. Or maybe you just did too many other things when you should have been working on your project. So what do you do now?
You can't reschedule over and over again. That would defeat the whole purpose of a schedule. Reschedule when unexpected circumstances cause you to fall behind, but don't use rescheduling as a solution whenever you don't want to make your schedule a priority.
If it is still early enough in the process, you may be able to set a new schedule. Take the remaining tasks you have, and the remaining amount of time before the due date, and fit the work in evenly. You will have to work all that much harder and more efficiently from that point on because there won't be as much, if any, leeway in your schedule. You won't be able to allow as much extra time for other activities or for unexpected events.
If you are really struggling with finishing the amount of work you have in the amount of available time, you should ask for help. Some instructors are more approachable on this than others. Again, you want to avoid asking for an extension. What you might get is some guidance as to whether you are headed in the right direction or are spending too much time on any one area, and which aspects, if any, you could leave out. If asking the instructor for help isn't possible, sometimes tutors or peer mentors can offer assistance. An added advantage is that they are typically older students who have recently tackled similar projects.
