You’ve got just about two months until the MBA application deadlines of early January roll around. You want to present an organized, complete, and impressive application, all under the buzzer. There’s only one way you’ll get it all done—and done well!—and that is, by getting organized.

By this point, you should have already taken your GMAT, researched the schools thoroughly, and jotted down notes about possible essay topics. Now it’s time to hone in on those essays and focus on completing those applications.

The sooner you get organized, the better equipped you’ll be at methodically and thoroughly filling out each and every application. Writing polished and thoughtful essays is not something you want to leave until the last minute, especially since the last minute, in this case, falls out around the holiday season and New Year’s! To increase your chances of getting accepted, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got enough time so that being stressed and being rushed don’t interfere with your performance.

So what should you be doing now to make sure that it all comes together on time?

1. Create a schedule…and stick to it! Make your schedule as detailed as possible and set yourself reasonable and achievable goals within the given timeframe. Allow time for drafting, writing, and editing each essay. Each step takes lots of time, and if you start now, you’ll have just the right amount to perfect your final product. (Assume you’ll need about three weeks for the first application and about one and a half weeks for subsequent essays.) Try and keep a steady momentum and enjoy that feeling of crossing items off your to-do list as you accomplish each goal.
2. Work on one application at a time. If you turn your application writing into a juggling act, skipping around from one to the next as your mood takes you, you’ll end up with a jumble of words that convey you as fragmented as the writing process you’ve adopted. You may think it’s a good idea to tackle all of the goals essays first before moving on to the team work essays for each application and then writing all of the achievement essays at once, but that “method” is generally a recipe for rejection. You need to write Harvard’s application and convey your story as it relates to Harvard. Write Stanford’s essays and tell your story as it relates to Stanford, and the same with Wharton, Kellogg, Columbia, MIT, and any other b-school program you’re applying to. You need to approach each application on its own so that you present to each a complete picture of yourself that will be compatible with what each individual b-school is looking for.
3. Match up experiences with each of the essay questions and stay consistent throughout your application. While it’s okay to use the same experience for a failure question in one application and an achievement question in another, you’ll want to make sure that there are no overlaps like that within the same application.
4. Do not submit applications as you complete them, but rather put them away until you complete them all – provided you don’t miss any deadlines. As you move from application #1 to #2 to #3 and so on, you’ll find that certain points become clearer in your mind. It would be a shame to send in the first application and then think of ways you could have improved it only it’s already too late. Hold on to each application until you’ve completed them all—if you’ve stuck to your schedule, then you should have a few days left at the end to do a final polish and refine those originally fuzzy ideas.
5. Plan to submit your application 24-48 hours before the deadline. The application servers can become slow and even go down during the last few hours before application deadlines.

For more essay writing tips, check out our popular ebook, MBA Blastoff: 45 Terrific Tips to Launch Your MBA Application to Acceptance.