Leaving enough time to revise

Invariably, the factor that determines whether or not I output a quality piece of work is the time I allow myself to revise. I've found that it barely matters how much time I spend on a first draft -- flying through as fast as I can or leaving myself time to think through every action -- the quality I end up with is more or less the same. The greatest increase in quality comes with revision.

However, whenever I do a project that doesn't have multiple due dates so as to obligate revision, I always end up finishing the first draft right as the deadline creeps up, leaving almost no time to work it over and reconsider how I constructed the project in the first place. It doesn't even seem to matter how early I start the project; I will always work at a speed that allows me to finish the draft in time for the deadline, and no earlier. I guess it's the urge to procrastinate, but it's not the type of procrastination that makes me put off starting the project. It's the type of procrastination that makes me spend longer on each slide, sentence, or component, makes me overthink things, makes  me work inefficiently. I can only seem to overcome this urge when I'm coming up on a deadline of some kind, which is why I really only get around to finishing up the draft as the deadline approaches.

One thing that has helped me get around this tendency in a couple of my classes this semester has been the use of writing advisers, either at the BE Comm Lab or in other departments. By scheduling appointments for them to review my draft, I can create a sort of artificial deadline by which I need to have a draft done, leaving more time for revision. I plan to use this feature for my upcoming final paper for my CI-H, as well as for the remaining writing assignments for this class.

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