Meetings upon meetings. Awkward hour gaps between classes in which you decide to nap and/or accomplish absolutely nothing. Before you know it, it's 9 PM and you're still two chapters behind in reading for your 9 AM class tomorrow. These are the all-too-familiar hallmarks of a college student's day, and moments that as a junior, I still sometimes battle. However, here are my top 5 tips to increase your productivity throughout the day, because we all know that nothing feels better than crossing off the tasks you've accomplished in the day.
1. Write in a planner
Let me just say that without my planner on hand, I would be a complete mess. I realized my need for a planner when I started taking on several leadership positions (replete with their daily meetings), a heavy academic course load, and random tasks I needed to keep track of. It could be on Google calendar, a running to-do list, or, as I prefer, a Monet-inspired planner from Half-price books, but regardless, write down your tasks and activities. Simply being aware of how your time is being allocated throughout the day and being wary of upcoming deadlines, exams and dinners with friends can be eye-opening to then deciding when to study, go to the gym or do laundry.
2. Set realistic goals
Cue the number one fallacy to wasting time and feeling behind on classes and work - unrealistic goals. Be realistic with yourself and set goals that you know you can accomplish (yes, take into account the extra hour spent socializing at lunch). And don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t meet your goals, just revise and accomplish. If it’s a lazy day and your only goal is to do laundry, then so be it. Not only will setting realistic goals increase your productivity but it will also help you feel better about the goals you accomplish throughout the day.
3. Two-Minute Rule
LIFE-CHANGING, I promise. If there’s one technique that has dramatically increased my productivity, it’s the two-minute rule, which I sometimes modify to be the “two-five" minute rule. Basically, if you have a task that can be accomplished in two minutes, like sending an e-mail or coordinating a meeting time, DO IT NOW. I’m getting better at this myself, but I can’t tell you how much implementing this into your routine can cut out wasted time and procrastination.
4. Weed out the Distractions
Yes, I’m talking about Facebook, Netflix, and the baby animal videos section of Youtube. Step 1 – Identify distractions. Step 2 – Make an active effort to reduce the time you spend doing these things, or at the very least, when you’re studying or working, cut any avenues to these distractors out completely. For me, it meant giving my sister my Facebook password and asking her to only allow me no more than 10 minutes on Facebook a day (best thing I’ve done to date, tbh). It might just be putting your phone on do not disturb while you work, but try it for a week and see how much your productivity improves.
5. Plan to have fun or socialize
We can’t study and work all day. It’s not only unhealthy, but also not fun – college is supposed to be the best years of our lives, right? But there’s a proper way to have fun and socialize without losing productivity, and that’s by planning it. Allocate time in the day to socialize with friends and allocate the time away to do work – sometimes, you can get away with doing both. The main takeaway from this tip is to try to avoid spending hours neither "wasting" time as you'd like nor doing work.
Oh hey, now I can cross out “finish writing article” from my to-do list and move on to the next task – wait, does it say “clean my room”? Did I mention that certain tasks are just not worth doing?
