One of my friends and fellow English majors in college regularly did something that just about nobody else I knew could pull off with regularity—she would finish her papers days or even weeks before they were due.

To her, it made such perfect sense. I’m sure she wondered why the rest of us didn’t follow suit. She’d plug away at a relaxed pace for a few days, edit, polish, and save it. Done. No stress. No all-nighter. No last-minute frantic rush. I don’t think she ever earned a grade of anything but an A (no surprise).

Then there was me, the day before every paper was due, diving in for a full-fledged academic assault while staring at a blank computer screen. I was always so envious of her on those days, knowing that she was done and either moving on to a new assignment, or just having fun and basking in her my-paper’s-already-done glow.

I mention that to acknowledge my hypocrisy when I tell you to just start now.

College applications, the project in your history class, the paper in AP English—none of them are going away, all of them will cause more stress if you keep waiting, and none of them will be as good as they could have been if you had just started before you really needed to.

I have no explanation for why I never figured this out until about 10 years into my professional career. Consider my slow uptake as a gift to you.

I’ll make it easy. Just try it one time. See how much better you feel before, during, and after it’s done.

Try it once and it’ll probably become one of your best habits.

Know Your Company builds software that helps CEO’s gather real feedback from their employees. Last week, they found a glitch in their software. For the past six months, new employees were able to see responses that only the CEO was supposed to have access to. That’s a pretty major slip-up. But rather than hope nobody noticed, they emailed every CEO who was their customer and admitted that they’d screwed up. Every response they received back was positive. You can read about it here.

The easy lesson to pull from this for companies and for people is to apologize when you make a mistake. But there are other components in this instance that are important not to miss.

1. They’d already built up credibility.
I don’t use the product, but I’ve read a lot about Know Your Company. The product seems to get rave reviews. They treat their customers well (every potential customer gets a personal tour of the product from Know Your Company’s CEO). They try to run a good business. Imagine how the customers would have reacted if the product regularly had problems or if they didn’t treat people well. The admission and the apology went over well because Know Your Company had done the hard part of building up credibility before their mistake.

2. They admitted their mistake before they had to.
Know Your Company didn’t discover this mistake—a customer pointed it out to them. But instead of dealing with that one instance, fixing the problem, and hoping nobody noticed, Know Your Company sent personal emails to every CEO on their customer roster. They didn’t wait until a company actually suffered damage or the press got a hold of the story. They admitted their mistake before they had to.

There are two kinds of apologies. The first is the one that comes when you’re caught. You knew you were doing something wrong, you did it anyway, and now the jig is up. Apologizing actually serves you as much or more than it does the people you hurt. You’re really just asking for leniency.

And then there’s the apology that comes after an honest mistake, something you never wanted to happen, when you never intended to cause harm, or when you just plain didn’t know you were doing anything wrong.

Know Your Company’s apology went over well because it fell into the second category. As you’ll see in the story, many of the CEO’s who responded to the admission pointed out that mistakes happen. They do. But people are more likely to forgive when your intention was good, but the outcome was bad.

Here are a few past posts, books, and other resources in the spirit of students heading back to school:

How to achieve your goals in school this year

Become more impressive by doing less

Five things you can start doing tomorrow that will get you better grades

Back-to-school resolution suggestions for students

My favorite study skills resource is Cal Newport’s How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less. Yes, he wrote it for college students, but most of it is equally applicable to high school students, with great advice about how to take notes, how to study, how to take a test, etc.

Cal’s blog is also excellent, though its new layout, and lack of search availability by subject, makes it harder to find what you’re looking for than it used to be.

My book, If the U Fits: Expert Advice on Finding the Right College and Getting Accepted, explains every step of the college admissions process, from classes and testing to applications, essays, and interviews.

 

Breanne, our director in Mission Viejo, California, received a totally unexpected email yesterday from a former student who’s a freshman in college. Here’s the text, shared with the student’s permission:

Hi Breanne –

I hope you’re doing well. I was writing because I owe you a huge thank you! Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I know I wasn’t the easiest student but you never gave up on me. I am in college because of you and all of your amazing help. So from the bottom of my heart thank you. I miss coming into your office and getting yelled at! Most things about home sound good right about now. I hope you have a great year with the incoming seniors and just know that all of your work was appreciated! I hope to hear from you soon.

Garrett
Indiana University

It’s hard for me to describe to high school students what a sincere “thank you” like that means to your counselor, your teacher, your parent, or anyone else who’s taken an interest and helped you get where you want to go. I’ve mentioned before that my mother keeps a shoebox of the nice notes she received from her students during her 30-year run as a high school English teacher. That should give you some sense of how important those words are to the people receiving them.

Yes, basic social graces dictate that we should say “thank you” when somebody does something for us. But that can be easy to miss (I know I certainly did) when you’re seventeen, and those helping you are fulfilling their professional or parental responsibilities.

Say “thank you” anyway. A real one, like the one in Garret’s email. It’s the right thing to do, a good habit to get into, and the best possible gift you could give in return.

Here’s some interesting research showing that students who took notes by hand showed more memory and comprehension than those who took notes on the same material with laptops.

And here are two past posts on note-taking, one on the importance of active (vs. mindless) note-taking and another sharing study skills from author Cal Newport.

A friend of mine is a journalist with a forthcoming non-fiction book that’s getting a lot of attention, so much so that she’s regularly invited to speak to groups about the subject matter. Her public visibility also means that she frequently gets emails from people she’s never met asking questions, like:

Can you connect me with someone who can help me get a job at ______?

Can you pass my resume on to your contacts who might be able to hire me?

(Insert long personal story)…what’s your advice about the best way to handle this?

She does what she can, but in most cases, she finds the requests selfish and inappropriate. I would, too. To fulfill the requests wouldn’t just be an expenditure of time. Forwarding a resume or brokering an introduction is like offering a tacit approval of the asker (again, she’s never met these people). It puts her own reputation and relationships at stake. And in almost every case, there’s nothing being offered in return. It’s a win for the asker but a lose for her.

But given how often I write about the importance of initiative here, I can see why–particularly for a 17-year-old who’s learning the ropes of the world outside of high school–there might be some gray area between creating opportunities for yourself and taking selfish shortcuts.

I don’t think there’s a precise metric to follow to make sure you end up on the right side of the spectrum, but here are a few tips:

1. Please read this past post about deserving the help. It could help you avoid some embarrassing missteps.
2. Consider the order of the ask.
3. Be polite. Acknowledge that this person is busy. And if you get a helpful reply, send an effusive and sincere thank-you email, not a follow-up request for more help.
4. Give the person an out. Make it clear that you’ll understand if they aren’t able to help you.

The Internet has made it easy to connect with just about everyone. It’s up to all of us to use those connection powers wisely.

I’m heading off on vacation for the next ten days, with ten days’ worth of blog posts queued up and ready to post. Like most worker bees, I had plenty to do in preparation for my time off. But I got these blogs written the same way I’d advise a high school student to make great progress on college applications:

1. Start earlier than you need to.
2. Make an artificial deadline.
3. Set aside specific time to get it done.
4. Eliminate all distractions and potential for interruption.
5. Enjoy the relief of having it behind you.

I’m repeating it because it works. I bet it will work for you, too.

The most valuable hard work often feels risky. Not dangerous, necessarily, but certainly not safe.

Raise your hand in class.
Have the difficult conversation with a friend, customer, or your boss.
Enroll in a course that intimidates you.
Take on the project nobody else wants to do.
Run for the office you might not win.
Suggest an idea that might not work.
Make a cold call.
Introduce yourself.
Try something new.
Admit when you were wrong.
Take responsibility.
Deflect credit.

The best thing about this hard work? It gets easier the more often you do it.

1. Start earlier than you need to.
2. Give yourself less time to complete it (create an artificial deadline if necessary).
3. Eliminate distractions like phone, email, and interruptions.
4. If it’s a big project, break it into smaller parts and start by attacking just one.
5. Use momentum like fuel—the more you add, the farther you’ll go.