What if my obstacles change over time or work synergistically against me? During the beginning of the 10-week term, I am excited about teaching Algebra to my students and even grading does not seem so bad. So, I try to get everything done right away. Since I teach part-time and tutor privately on my own, I am not really exhausted by the initial burst of effort. But then, about three weeks in, students start handing in assignments late or start to skip class one week or two and fall behind with regular quizzes as well. Despite our strict attendance policies, several students are usually late or absent. Since my class sizes always range between 3 and 10 students and retention is a big issue at my college, I become lenient and lose control of when the work gets turned in. Then, I procrastinate as I don't want to grade quiz 4 or homework number 3 on three separate occasions. Moreover, students that don't do their work on time copied off the graded assignments from those that submitted problem sets by the specified deadline. I figured this out after I saw strings of familiar errors in the late work. Needless, to say, the last 2 weeks of the term I am still grading tons of make-up work. I have tried using point deductions on late work or saying I would not accept tardy assignments, but neither strategy solved the problem. Of course, students rebelled against such policies when they consistently missed classes due to family or job conflicts. And as I said above, because retention is so important, I do cave in to avoid having several students drop the course at once. If everyone has submitted their assignments and no further quizzes need to be taken, it takes me much longer to get everything graded with all the accumulated make-ups. What can I do in this case?