3 Steps to Write Essays Faster and Procrastinate Less (By a Published Author)

After a long hiatus, I'm back with more tips :) For anyone who is interested, I've been unable to post because of a combination of unexpected events in my personal and family life, as well as being tied up with my full-time work coaching students + completing my Master of Education.

Lots of content coming soon!

If you enjoyed what I had to give or found it valuable, a subscribe would be sincerely appreciated.
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Listen to Bigger Plate, my podcast on efficiency on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, Stitcher and any good podcast player.
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Justin Sung is an ex-junior doctor who is passionate about creating efficient and meaningful change. He believes that a culture of spoon-feeding and tutoring is a societal issue and that most people are not making good career decisions - especially around medicine. He has worked with thousands of students for over 10 years, teaching them to manage their studies and time more efficiently using evidence-based and rigorously field-tested techniques.
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[ingore]

There's a technique that you can use to get better at essay writing:
But first, we must look at the problems:
1st: Ideation, What are you gonna be writing about? And what are the points you are going to support?
2nd: Structuring, What is the order of what we're gonna be writing about? How do we structure it?

Tips:
1. Increase your "elegance", read a lot of difficult books, develop that analysis skill and try and copywriting styles that you enjoy, because you're trying to find your own style that seems genuine to you.
Most problems lie in the approach, either because of procrastination due to feeling overwhelming writing without planning it out in layers, as well as structuring your points. This is why it's important to not write in a linear approach as it's less efficient than doing it in layers.
What are layers?
Stage 1: Before we do layers, make sure that you understand the concept, because then it will make it MUCH easier to allow you to write your essays. A way to conceptualize is to look at the main themes and how do they connect with each other, it's similar to mind mapping connections between different concepts. And a pro tip, look into the author's background. The themes and examples used in the story will probably be inspired by the author's real-life experiences.
Stage 2: Start with the questions, questions lead to points that allow you to structure the essay.

Example I made:
What is a phone?
Where did it come from?
What does the research say about it? How is it important?
Why is it controversial?
What are you stances on the topic?

Now with this outline your brain doesn't have to be as scared because now you have a question that's easier to answer which you'll brain will naturally focus on.
Stage 3: Answer the questions from the outline, let's say for a research article use some evidence to explain the text.

[michaelk.]

I almost stopped watching after point one because I thought: "well I know this, I should just start my paper". I am glad that I stayed for your second and third point. You blew my mind again. You are the god of learning!

[snoobab_]

I keep having anxiety when I think about the number of pages I need to write. I keep thinking, "how on earth am I going to write 12 - 15 pages about this research question?".
I will most definitely give your tips a try.

[sydthasquid]

I’ve also noticed that spacing out the layers into smaller deadlines improves writing quality (and helps with manageability if you’re intensely busy). Example: Start now on a paper due in 2 weeks by setting checkpoints on concepts/research, questions, draft, and revisions/editing all the way to (or before) the deadline.

[karlie]

The "Ask Questions" part is so helpful. I didn't know I was missing it the whole time and I had a hard time fighting my procrastination because I didn't know how I'm going to organize all these arguments into an essay. Thank you for making this video

[JF-fruf]

One thing that I've found that helps is to start with the bibliography and works cited, then go to writing the essay. This is because I always hate those bits, and if I'm doing the essay last minute (yes, I know that's what this video is partially designed to help prevent, but even so) I always forget to leave enough time to include them properly.

If I wind up not using one of the works that I put on there in the beginning, I can just delete it. If I find another as I go on, adding one additional source isn't as intimidating as having to do a whole bunch at once. Some people would argue that this wastes time, but for me it's a method that just makes it easier to start.

[aiapplicationswithshailey]

Great video. What I like is you are taking advice which is commonly available and then taking us through how to apply it specifically. That really helps. All time management article's talk about breaking up a big task into smaller steps. Yes. But how? Your approach is great

[yasminhando]

I'm definitely missing writing those questions, my writing process is complete chaos lol, I usually start with outlines and jotting down my thoughts but in the middle of my writing the logic/line of thinking I'm going for starts showing its flaws, so I start changing the order of my arguments, trying to put the puzzle together and waste so much time, going to try and really work on step 2

[kakurenbo]

My level of essay writing is somewhere of a 7th grade kid and lets just say that I'm older than that 😂 However this video helps to clarify a lot of fogginess I have when attempting to write an essay. Thank you very much!!! Subscribed.

[txunamythang]

Today, for the first time, I found an essay video useful, and stress-reducing. Thanks Justin for your advice.

[beakless_duck]

Ayyy I'm really happy to finally see another vid from your channel!!

Production value on point, looking much better than the older vids

[enviableace]

Summary (Notes to self)
Way to think of it:
- Think of way that points to each other for effective flow in the essay
"Talk to the Topic" by:
- asking questions
- think of the author's perspective
- research author
- Made something meaningful to the
Them
Mimic an author (maybe your favorite)

[zaeemAtif]

This is really a GEM available on YouTube for free.
Thanks

[ImprovementGang]

What I do now is to do bullet points about the things that I wish to write about. Get down my ideas, and then organize the points and ideas to flow well. After that, writing the essay is easier.

[serphn]

Personal notes
Step 1: conceptualise -> really understand the themes and the main theme and how do they connect/interact with each other
Pro tip: read some background on the author
Step 2: Write down questions that if answered will form your main arguments
Example at 10:20
Step 3: Answer the questions-> after answering these questions will form your main arguments and support these with evidence

[kenishamartins]

Thanks for the tips!!! Have been procrastinating a lot and this helped give me the push required

[lineah]

Your channel is a real gem 💎 thank you so much for the time and effort you put into these!! 💚

[leebliss]

So what’s crazy for me, is that I definitely thought of all of these, but I was getting tripped over about the order of them, on my own I figured out that I should

- understand the topic
- identify the main points
- identify how the points interact

But from there, I got stuck, because I couldn’t understand how to structure the points, and when I couldn’t decide on how I wanted to structure the points, I’d get anxiety paralysis or decision paralysis and just stop

I tried the questions and answers, but when I did it, it felt very mechanical and sort of “seperate” to the flow of an essay and I again got stuck on how to do it

The break through here for me, was the suggestion to ask questions to the article, that come up naturally, then answer them, and then read it as the reader and organise the answers in a way that flows and makes sense

THAT is life changing advice

And this was a hard pill to swallow that I needed help because I was so used to getting amazing grades on essays but then I had some adversity in my life and it affected my psyche so extremely I suddenly lost the ability to prioritise and organise, while still being able to think critically, which was so so frustrating, but admitting I need help and seeking that help out, is really affirming and comforting not only because I can see now that I really was on the right track, but that just because we are good at something and then suddenly aren’t for any reason, doesn’t mean we can’t get back there. And it’s comforting to know I’m not the only one who needs help sometimes.

Great channel thank you ❤

[sydneyjames]

This helped me so much structuring my final research paper! Thank you!

[theorinaldi]

Your relation based learning method surpass active recall and spaced répétions, you are the only one youtuber who are talking about it, can you do more video about it, I see your other channel: I can study or something like that, and I know there is already a lots of content about it: but I think this is so a large subject, that you can always create new content