Napoleon Hill, arguably one of the greatest motivational speakers, once said: "procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday." This "bad habit" was once my personal philosophy. Beginning from fourth grade I didn't do anything until the very last possible moment. This was so problematic that if a project or assignment was assigned two weeks before it was due, I wouldn't start until two days before the deadline. This "habit" of mine continued all throughout my elementary and junior high school academic career, causing a multitude of problems for me and my grades. As I reached high school, I saw that this was my chance to start fresh. I expected to ditch my old ways of procrastination and laziness and show my high school what I am really made of. Sure enough, I procrastinated fulfilling those expectations. Freshman and sophmore year I turned in only sub-par work and usually put it off until couldn’t complete it in without it being late. In this instance sophmore year I was assigned to read a book from a list of pre-approved authors, and write a multiple page report on it. It was assigned two months before the due date to both complete the book, and finish the report. As the days I passed I convinced myself that "I still have time" and "tomorrow will be a better day." The due date was eventually two days away and I hadn't even opened the book. I quickly googled a summary of my book and took notes from it. It took me two all-nighters to simply complete my project, no chance of editing for mistake before it was due. On the due date I turned in my project, full of spelling and grammatical mistakes, into the teacher. To my dismay, I received a C+ on the project, but the experience didn't alter my inclination towards procrastination, and I continued on this vicious cycle. This all changed during sophmore year. My English teacher, Mrs. Gent, made her classes write "portfolios" every week prompts that helped strengthen essay writing skills. The portfolios were usually old AP test prompts decommissioned for public use. Gent emphasized that portfolios were not about turning them in on time, even though he recommended it, but they were about the quality of the work produced. I naturally thought that this was going to be procrastination heaven, but then I suddenly remembered my expectations that I had set for myself when I had first started high school. I decided to do my first portfolio earlier than I normally would. As I started to do the portfolios earlier, the grades I received on them improved. At one point I received three perfect scores in a row on my portfolios. This attitude diffused to all my other classes and I eventually found a balance of my time. What I learned from my experiences with procrastination throughout my academic journey is that procrastination is not a habit, but a disease that cripples a perfectly capable student of achieving success. I have also learned that through time, and most importantly, the will to act, I can combat procrastination. As the great Napoleon Hill famously said: "What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."