It’s the beginning of a new semester and you always start off super determined to do well, but somehow always find yourself losing that focus and motivation after about three weeks. Follow these tips to keep that determination and do your best this semester.
iPhone’s Do Not Disturb setting is your best friend.
It can be really hard to ignore your phone when it’s constantly lighting up from Insta and Facebook notifications or vibrating from Snapchats. Whenever you’re studying and trying to get work done, use iPhone’s Do Not Disturb setting. If you’re really hooked on your phone, you might also want to put it away in your bag or on a different table out of reach.
It’s also a good idea to put your phone on Do Not Disturb while your sleeping- you can’t get the beauty sleep you need if your phone is always going off in the middle of the night!
Write things down.
Life is so much easier when you write down all of your assignments and due dates. Half the time your professor says a due date in lecture or you know that it will be posted on elms, but actually writing it down helps you remember and makes you more committed to actually doing it. Then after you complete the assignment you can cross it out, making it clear what work you’ve done and what still needs to happen. This gives you a huge feeling of accomplishment while also ensuring that you won’t miss any deadlines this semester!
Work in 30-minute intervals.
Work hard for thirty minutes and then take a short 2 or 3-minute break, where you can chill and give your brain a break or check your phone if you need to. One of my professors recommended this study technique to my class last semester, and I thought it was dumb but it actually worked out pretty well for me! Thirty minutes of solid focus on your work followed by a short break helps you remember the material while making your study-sesh feel a lot less long and boring.
Turn off text messages on your Mac.
All right, this one sounds totally insane but I tried it last semester and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. When you’re in class or trying to get work done on your Mac laptop, it’s super distracting to see all those text messages pop up. They can be hard to ignore and just end up getting you distracted. I completely disabled text messages from my laptop and hated it at first, but ever since I’ve been way more productive when working on my laptop.
Stay on top of everything.
Most importantly, the best way to stay focused and reduce stress is to stay on top of all your schoolwork throughout the semester. Review all the hard topics your professor talks about right away, so when it’s time to study them for the test you’re already familiar with them. This may seem tedious and annoying, but it actually saves a lot of time and prevents the need to cram before those big midterms!
These five tips help me rock every semester, and they can do the same for you. Remember new semester, new you- so stay focused and go get to it!