
Is your paper due soon, and yet you find yourself doing everything and anything in the world except writing it?
You clean your place, you check your phone, then you clean your desk, then you cook. Anything to avoid writing that essay.
In this article, I’ll reveal to you the real reason you’re procrastinating and what to do to finally write that paper and be done with it.
Let’s get right to it.
The REAL Reason You’re Procrastinating
Procrastination on a writing project makes you feel bad about it. You feel like a lazy person.
But the reality is deeper than that. So, what is the real reason you’re procrastinating?
Okay, drum roll…
The real problem is that writing an essay or a research paper is hard if you don’t know how. And you don’t know how.
How do I know that? Well, I’ve taught essay writing to hundreds of people, mostly on the university level.
And I know that by the time you get into college, you still have no idea how to write an essay.
And your age doesn’t matter, either. Most of my readers are adult learners who think they can’t write because they forgot how to do it.
No, you didn’t forget how to do it. You never learned it in the first place.
They don’t teach essay writing in school. They just don’t.
Why Is Essay Writing So Hard?
First, writing an essay is essentially a sequence of decisions. And we humans are terrible at making decisions. We would rather do anything else than make decisions.
What am I talking about here? What kinds of decisions do you have to make as a writer of an essay?
You must decide…
- What your main point will be
- How you will support that point
- What kind of evidence you will present
These three decisions alone will keep you from getting started until the last minute.
And second, writing an essay involves organizing your thoughts. And that is also an activity that the human brain doesn’t like very much. Being scattered is a normal state.
What Can You Do to Stop Procrastinating and Write that Essay Now?
As I said earlier, your brain doesn’t want to make decisions and organize its thoughts.
So, what we’re going to do is make these two tasks really easy. How can we accomplish that?
Well, I’ll give you simple, step-by-step instructions based on a real-life example.
How to Overcome Essay Writing Procrastination
Let’s pretend that this is our assignment:
“Your essay should answer the question, ‘Is accurate record keeping important in patient care?’ Support your arguments using your class notes and any research you may find helpful.”
This example is from a real class in a nursing school program. Let’s do it.
Step 1. Decide on your main point quickly
Do it without overthinking or doing a lot of research. Just decide.
In this case, the decision is really easy. Is accurate record keeping important in patient care?
I’m not a medical professional, but I’d bet at least ten bucks that yes, it is important. And I don’t have to consult my notes or do any research. I just decide based on what I know is probably true.
And once I’ve made this decision, I’ll write down my main point:
“Accurate record keeping is important in patient care.”
See, this is the most important decision in writing an essay. Because it determines what statement you will be supporting in the entire paper. Just do it quickly.
Step 2. Organize your content quickly
Again, don’t spend much time on this. Just decide on your supporting points. And use the Power of Three.
What is the Power of Three? It is just the idea that you simply decide that your essay will have three supporting points for your main point.

You don’t have to consult your research. You don’t have to overthink it. Just like you quickly decided on your main point, decide that you’ll use three ideas to support it.
Don’t worry that you don’t know what the ideas are. Once your brain knows what to look for, it will find three ideas easily.
Again, the real problem is not the writing itself. It is the decision-making. If you make it easy for your brain by just picking an answer and going with it, you’ll overcome essay procrastination.
Let’s Use the Power of Three in Our Example
Here is our main point again:
“Accurate record keeping is important in patient care.”
By using the Power of Three, we know that we are looking for three reasons why this is true. And we also have this nice little placeholder in our brain:

Our brain now looks for information to fill in these blank spaces. And it will find it.
Step 3. Come Up with Three Supporting Ideas Quickly
Because your brain knows that you’re looking for three ideas specifically, it can find them quickly and easily.
Without even being a nursing student, I can say that I can probably do it. And I don’t even need any research here.
I will need my research later. But at this point, I don’t have to deal with it.
All I need is use my imagination and just think up three reasons why it makes sense to keep accurate records with a patient.
And here are my supporting ideas (and my whole essay structure)…

Guess what…
By the time you’re done with this step, your essay procrastination is gone. Why? Because you’ve just completed the hardest part of writing any essay.
This structure contains:
- Your main point
- Your supporting ideas
- A clear picture of what the finished essay will look like
Not knowing these steps and not having this resulting structure are exactly why you were procrastinating.
Just complete these steps quickly the way I just taught you, and your essay procrastination will be gone.
The only thing left to do is the final step.
Step 4. Follow the Structure and Write the Essay
The rest is really easy because now your brain knows exactly what to do.
And now you can use your class notes and research to support your points because you already know what goes where.
You are no longer staring at the blank screen. You have your essay content outline right in front of you, and you came up with it quickly.
By the way, here is this lesson on video, if you are a visual learner:
Where Do You Go From Here…
Your next step in writing an essay would be to write a complete thesis statement. Here’s an article where I teach you how to do that step-by-step:
Hope this was helpful!
Hi,Tutor Phil
I am coming.
I will go to another city for my new job after a few days. I got my master degree in engineering in 2008. After graduation, I entered one Startup Company which engaged in researching & producing materials for new sources of energy. 2 month ago, I resigned. Then, I came back to my hometown and got a job near my home.
In my hometown, I have abundant time to learn and play. And it’s also a good chance to improve my English.
It comes to TOEFL, the essay should be accomplished in 30 minutes and be more than 300 words. So, if we take the into consideration both time and word count ,approximate 350 words should be a good choice.
Your blog is very interesting and helpful. I can see the instructions in it, but could you give us some essays which follow your instructions.
Hi.
Maybe what I’ll do is I’ll just take the essay that you posted, edit it, and post is as one of the model essays on my blog.
How about that?
Tutor Phil
Hi.
You surprise me.
It needs correcting and editing before it can be posted.
In the sam time, its TOEFL background shoud be concealed. Because if it is adopted by TOEFL takers in the test, the Electrical-Raters of TOEFL will find the similar ones form million essays easily. And these will be cosidered as cheats. It had happed in TOEFL test very time.
Hey, Zhaij Jia,
Here’s your sample essay:
https://www.tutorphil.com/blog/sample-essay-1/
Do you recognize it?
Tutor Phil
You made some great points here with your post. I got to say i like visiting and reading your opinion Please maintain the good work.
Hi Phil,
I have a question on writing and doing other homework assignments; do you think listening to pop music (or which ever music you like) helps you do homework? I think it helps me feel less lonely and frustrated with the stack of homework papers I have, but at the same time, I think it might be a distraction to be singing and tapping to the beat while writing my essay or doing my math homework. Music or No Music?
Thanks,
Kat.
HI Kat,
No music for me – definitely. I’ve tried the most unobtrusive and relaxing music while doing any kind of intellectual work. Doesn’t work for me. I need total silence and no distractions.
I’ve seen people listen to loud music and read or write at the same time. It’s beyond me how they can concentrate. Kudos to them 🙂
TP
I want to say that this post is amazing, great written and include almost all significant infos. I’d like to look more posts like this.
I do not know the exact amount of students who write their own essay. I also look to their service. Great post, easy writing style as well as clear content.
I’m impressed. You’re truly well informed and very intelligent. You wrote something that people could understand and made the subject intriguing for everyone. I’m saving this for future use.
I also very often do the things in last minute, just because i understand that my efficiency is higher near the deadline.
Procrastinating has been an issue especially for a student like me. With your article, it will help me defy this academically-challenged dilemma especially with writing essays.
hey this is wonderful article I really appreciated this essay Writing thank you very much such an amazing blog…
I really appreciated this wonderful article about essay writing.You wrote something that people could understand and made the subject intriguing for everyone. Please maintain the good work.Thank you very much.
After seeing it, i realize that i can understand more
Glad it helped 🙂
TP
Nice and useful article. Can we use it in our blog as a source?
You sure can. Thanks…
A new writer isn’t likely to have reliable information sources for the content they need to write – and it may sound silly but few of them actually consider utilizing a much underrated place known as The Library. Many new writers start sifting through content online and wind up swiping content from article directories (like this one). Some will completely rewrite the content; others may use poor quality spinners or simply copy and paste. Consider that a new writer may not necessarily provide the best research for your content.
If you are procrastinating a little too much, maybe that’s because you make it easy to procrastinate. Identify your browser bookmarks that take up a lot of your time and shift them into a separate folder that is less accessible. Disable the automatic notification option in your email client. Get rid of the distractions around you. I know some people will out of the way and delete/deactivate their facebook accounts.
Great advice, Andrea!