Get motivated on a university project?

Managing a project at university seems a real struggle. I am doing a degree in CIS because a degree is one of the basic and very useful requirements towards my career ambition. Mainly because of the personal strengths and focus it encourages rather than the subject itself. However, even though I am in my third and final year, because most of this work is project based, I have real trouble finding motivation and planning and structuring it. My mind always wonders off and I can't concentrate. My lecturer witters on about "academic underpinning" and crap loads of research which is life sifting for a needle in a haystack just to "confirm" or "support" ideas that I know could work anyway. It makes the process laborous and boring. I'm much more the kind of person who can actively do the types of work where I see the direct result of my effort and stimulate my creativity in a "hands on" type of way than all this academic sludge. What can anyone suggest on this? How can I get my brain round the hidiousness of this project? The weight of looming deadlines and other concurrent projects to deal with hangs heavily on top of me giving my brain a "paralysis" where I get nothing done. I'd sooner bugger off to the other side of the world for a good sodding break!