Assistant Professor of the Math and Computer Science Department, Matthew Weathers. | Katie Juranek/THE CHIMES

Imagine turning in a paper a week early instead of staying up until 3 a.m. the night before. Imagine going to a movie Saturday night or to Singspo on Sunday night free from the nagging feeling that you really should be studying something, reading something or writing something instead. Imagine not worrying about the new $375 fine because all your chapels are done before December.

Learn to delay gratification

You can do all these things by practicing the art of planning ahead and learning a little delayed gratification. In his book, “How We Decide,” journalist and blogger Jonah Lehrer describes a classic experiment in which 4-year-olds are offered the choice of eating one marshmallow right now or waiting a while for two marshmallows. Most of them couldn’t resist more than a few minutes. Are we any better?

We live in a fast-paced world where we’re used to instant gratification. Click! A new website. Tap send! Your friend gets your text and immediately responds. Although it would be easy to blame this fast pace on the Internet or social media, the late 1800s saw a bigger change in the pace of communication. It was the telegraph that separated communication from physical presence for the first time in human history, as told in the fascinating story, “The Victorian Internet” by Tom Standage.

Procrastination is not merely a modern problem, but there is little to encourage forethought and planning as a virtue in today’s society. Eugene Peterson in “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction” identifies an “assumption that anything worthwhile can be acquired at once” as a major problem in our society and says “there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue.”

Plan ahead

Education takes patient acquisition. You will learn more by writing a paper unhurriedly, thinking deeply about the topic and going through a revision or two. You will get more out of reading a book over the space of a few weeks. You will remember things for a test better if you study over the space of a few days.

But doing this requires careful planning. Start using a calendar — just click “calendar” when you’re reading your Biola email to access Google Calendar — and plan ahead. Schedule time for homework, papers and studying. I recommend scheduling a block of time to study for each class within 24 after each class session. Plan papers and projects weeks in advance.

Learn to find other motivation for your school work rather than the panic of a looming deadline. Learn to be intentional about how you use your time rather than merely defaulting to the immediately urgent or pleasurable. See Cal Newport’s “Study Hacks” blog for some good suggestions.

Start working ahead to avoid falling behind later

Typically, most students get more and more behind as the semester progresses. Turn that around, and work a little ahead each week instead. Then as the semester continues, you’ll get more and more ahead. This kind of scheduling and planning ahead is not easy, but most things of value are not easy. And the rewards are worth it.

“Who has time to work ahead? To read deeply? To write carefully?” you ask. Maybe you’re doing too much. I remember a sign hanging in the Horton Hall kitchen: “If you don’t have time to cook and clean up after yourself, then you don’t have time to cook.” Take a close look at how you use your time.

I’m not suggesting that you plan every minute or become a workaholic. Leave time for resting, hanging out with friends and doing fun things. You will enjoy those times more knowing that you have a plan in place for writing your paper on time, so you won’t worry about it.

Finally: recognize that even if you plan ahead, you need to be flexible. As Nassim Taleb claims in “The Black Swan” — no, not the movie — it’s hard to predict the “highly improbable” events which have the biggest effects on our lives. So plan ahead, but trust God in everything. And don’t eat that marshmallow. Not yet.