If books could have feelings, there’s a book inside my backpack right now that would feel pretty sad. Its contents promise a greater chance at succeeding on a stressful task, its tone is enthusiastic and encouraging to its readers, and its pages have example after example of ways you can improve. But it happens to be one of my least favorite books right now, and just because I have it in my backpack doesn’t mean that I actually want to open it that often.

I’m not going to reveal what that book is just yet. (Be assured that it isn’t a Jewish book or assigned reading or something.) Rather, I’m going to procrastinate and talk about, well, procrastination. But first let me tell you a story about the pet dog I never had! Just kidding. See, I’m pretty much procrastinating while I write this.

Time management has never been one of my strengths. Occasionally I’m lucky enough to have days where I just sit down on my bed and focus on what I need to get done, whether it’s typing an essay, studying for a final, or working out math problems. And on those days, the key is that I get to all of that immediately, without a second thought, without wasting time doing something unimportant. On my other days… Well, usually (thank God), I manage to get everything done, but only after I spend some time looking at websites or watching a few YouTube videos or endlessly checking Facebook. And even during my work, I’ll sneak a glance to my phone and flick downward on my phone’s screen to refresh my News Feed. (I call it the Facebook Flick™, and I might email Mark Zuckerberg to ask him if he wants to buy the trademark from me.) In other words, I don’t get started right away. I procrastinate, push things off, and often only get to them when it’s far later.

Many would say that this type of downtime is important and valuable. After all, if I spend every single moment of my life doing work and being focused, I’d probably collapse or explode or something. Of course it’s important to have breaks and be able to refresh your mind so you can tackle what needs to be done with far more verve. And I agree with that completely, especially as a commuting student at a challenging school. What bothers me is when the procrastination starts piling up–just one more minute on Facebook; just one more video. Let me just check that site one more time. Let me grab a quick snack. These things are in some ways like Lay’s Potato Chips–“You can’t eat just one.” And the hour gets later and later, and the day gets darker and darker, and before I know it I’m looking at a midnight or so bedtime because I need to finish all my stuff and it’s already far later than it should be.

And that’ll be even worse once I really get into junior year, and when the “honeymoon” period of school is over. There’ll be so many tests and assignments that I’ll hardly have room to breathe. Like everything in life, I feel, it’s about finding a balance. I need downtime and the chance to relax, but I also need to be able to get everything done at a reasonable time, especially if I want to get enough sleep. (A friend of mine once shared a link that purported to compare shrinking sleep durations with shrinking brain size. I was too terrified to click on it.)

How can I feel comfortable knowing that I’m doing things in the right order, the right times, with the right focus?

Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer to this. There’s no actual answer other than that I need to keep trying. The more I practice managing my time properly, and starting work on time, the more I’ll manage to improve. It sounds clich? (“practice makes perfect!”) but some clich?s are the types of things we should still live by.

And when I think about it, I have all sorts of ideas about how to help heal my procrastination symptoms. Maybe I can start writing out a schedule with a list of what I need to do before I relax. Or I can take a quick snack when I get home and then open up my notebooks at the table. Perhaps I should choose to start homework with something light, like a history reading, in order to ease myself into a routine. (I mean “light” as relative to everything else that needs writing; my history textbook could win an award for the heavy amount of details it gives. There was a lot more to the Revolutionary War than just crying about taxes.) It’s all about thinking of solutions. I know I have a bit of a problem, and now I want to find strategies to solve it. And as long as I get to that now and not push it off, I think I can solve it and renounce my citizenship in the Procrasti-Nation.

So now for the big reveal! What is this book in my bag that I need to read more but keep pushing off? Now that I’ve written this, I’m guessing that tonight I’ll finally return to reading it, using it, and having it give me all of its overenthusiastic encouragement. The title of this enigmatic book is SAT 2400: Aiming for the Perfect Score.

Yep, here we go.

Oren Oppenheim, age 16, lives in Fair Lawn, New Jersey and is a junior at Ramaz Upper School in Manhattan. He spends his free time writing and reading, and hopes to become a published novelist. You can email him at [email protected].

By Oren Oppenheim