Preparing an assignment is like making a good chilli…

It’s writing up time. Many students across the globe are currently beavering away on their assignments, getting them ready for pre-Christmas submission dates.

That December deadline, which once seemed like such a long way off, is nearly here.

The pressure is on, and sometimes, that can lead to a ‘keep going until I get it finished’ mindset.

I’ve come across so many students in my time who valiantly recount stories of all-nighters in front of the laptop, fuelled by coffee, snacks, energy drinks and sheer determination.

They type away, day after day, for hours, tenaciously tap-tap-tapping until their essay / dissertation / report is done.

Whilst this has become something of a tradition, an academic rite of passage, it won’t help you do your best work.

You’ll get lost in the detail, you’ll lose your ability to zoom out, and you might even end up producing something that doesn’t even make the grade.

What can be incredibly helpful, once you’ve got an assignment going, is to step away from it for a day or two. Put it down. Leave it alone. Go work on another assignment. Go do something else. Crawl out of that rabbit hole.

It’s like when you’re making a nice chilli. You get the basic ingredients, add them to the pot then bring it to the boil. Then you turn down the heat and let it simmer for a while.

The chilli is still going to be cooking, but by taking it off the ferociously hot ring, there’s much less of a risk that you’ll burn it.

By leaving it for a while, cooking over a low heat, you give the flavours a chance to develop.

Whilst it’s simmering away, you might also think about other ingredients you can add to enhance it. A different spice? A bit more pepper? A square of dark chocolate? I’ve never been convinced by the chocolate thing, ick, but you get my point.

Assignment preparation has a lot in common with making a chilli.

Going at it relentlessly until you’re finished is like missing out the ‘simmering’ stage of making chilli. Yes, you’ll have something to eat for dinner, but it won’t be as tasty as it would be had you left it a bit longer. With your assignment, yes, you’ll have something to hand in, but it might be a 55 rather than the 67 or 70 it could have been.  

Some students are worried that they’ll lose their train of thought or forget something unless they keep at it. But maybe you need to?

Maybe the train of thought you’ve jumped aboard has gone off the rails and it’s carrying you away from the actual aims of the assignment? Maybe there is some stuff you need to forget, because you came up with it at 3.15am in a haze of caffeine and Starburst.

The time out will help you see the bigger picture. It will help you figure out whether that example really is relevant. It will help you ascertain whether that theory is helpful. It will help you sense check whether what you’ve written is actually answering the question.

You can always carry a notebook around with you and jot things down that come to mind in the intervening period. You can always tap out any new thoughts into a notes app on your phone.

You’ll find that you think about other things, other angles, that will actually enhance your assignment – that extra bit of spice – that you’d never have come up with if you carried on chugging the energy drinks and burning the midnight oil.

Seriously, take a pause. Take some time out. Maybe go make a chilli whilst you do. Your assignment will be all the better for it.