With New Year’s and the start of a new semester, January seems like the perfect time to start a goal to be more productive. Maybe you started off Jan. 9 prepared to relinquish your fall semester slacker tactics, work your butt off and get that elusive 4.0 semester GPA. But now it’s February, and those readings you haven’t done are piling up, those deadlines you put off are swiftly approaching and caffeine has become the new sleep.
Right now your dreams of a 4.0 may be fading, but it’s time to bring them back—even a month in, it’s not too late to make spring 2013 your most productive semester yet! Check our HC UNC’s productivity tips and you’ll be on your way to a stellar semester in no time.
1. Block off designated study time.
Think about it: your class schedule is fixed. You’re required to be there in order to succeed, so you wouldn’t be planning coffee dates or trips to the mall during class time, right? (Well, if you are, it’s time to stop now.) The same logic can work for doing homework. Set aside designated daily times in your schedule where you’ll get work done and stick with them. If there’s an hour or two between classes, make that your study time, or if you’re better at concentrating after the school day is over, block off two hours after your last class to hit up Davis and concentrate. If you treat studying like a required class, you’ll get in more of a routine to actually get it done and won’t put it off.
Remember: by most professors’ standards, missing three classes lowers your grade—or even kicks you out of the class—so don’t miss your work time!
2. Pick a regular study location.
Do you need absolute quiet to concentrate? Make Davis your go-to study spot. Would you rather have a good amount of background noise? Hit up Caribou or Starbucks. Figure out what kind of study environment works for you and frequent that location. When you get to your designated study spot, your brain will get in work mode and you’ll be more likely to be productive. In the same vein, if you’re used to sleeping, watching TV or procrastinating in your dorm room or apartment, you won’t be in a working mindset if you try to study there. Find a study location that’s separate from your “fun” location.
3. Get rid of all distractions.
Social media and texting are the enemy of all productive collegiettes. If you’re studying, turn off your smartphone notifications—or, better yet, just turn off your phone (a couple hours without it won’t kill you, we swear). If you don’t need the internet to do your work, go to a restaurant or coffee shop that doesn’t have WiFi, like Caffe Driade. If you need the Internet to do your work but don’t trust your willpower to avoid Twitter, use a blocker website such as Cold Turkey that allows you to select websites such as Facebook or Pinterest that your computer will block for a specified amount of time.
4. Do your homework the day it’s assigned…
…NOT the day before it’s due (or the day it’s due, for that matter). Keeping ahead of the curve with daily assignments will make sure you stay ahead of all your other, bigger projects. This will come in handy if an assignment takes longer than expected and you have to put off your other work until the next day. If you try to do everything the day before it’s due, you won’t have the option to leave other work until the next day (hello, all-nighters!). Staying ahead of schedule will make it less likely that you find yourself panicking at 3 a.m. in the UL with a Diet Coke and three quizzes to study for.
5. Give yourself more time than you think you’ll need to do your work.
We’ve all been in that situation where you stay up all night working on that paper you thought would take an hour and a half to write. If you give yourself more time than you think you’ll need to study for a test or write a paper, you’ll either be pleasantly surprised that you finished beforehand or grateful that you gave yourself enough time to turn out quality work.
6. Wake up an hour earlier.
I know, I know—I just said something almost sacrilegious for college students. But if you set aside an hour in the morning where you do nothing but homework, you’ll be happier later in the day when you don’t have to say no to playing an afternoon game of Frisbee in the quad with friends, watching an episode of New Girl or going on a coffee date with that guy you’ve been crushing on because you have too much work to do. And if you get enough done, you can reward yourself by going to bed an hour earlier. See, it all works out!
7. Don’t multitask.
You may pride yourself on being able to watch Pretty Little Liars, check Twitter, eat dinner and conjugate French verbs all at once, but I have some news for you—doing your French homework by itself will help you get it done a lot faster (and you’ll be able to pay better attention to the drama when you watch PLL later—face it, those insane plot lines require your full attention to comprehend). According to an article on about.com, research has shown that multitasking reduces productivity by 40 percent. And even if you think switching between French and orgo work is acceptable because they’re both schoolwork, according to the article, “switching from one task to another makes it difficult to tune out distractions and can cause mental blocks that can slow down your progress.” Do yourself a favor and work on one assignment at a time—you’ll get your work done a lot faster because of it.
8. Reward yourself!
If you’ve been working hard, you deserve a reward! Figure out what will motivate yourself to get your work done faster and go with it. Maybe there’s a TV episode on later tonight that you really want to watch—but you can’t until you finish your calc homework. Stretch your mind even further by going to Trivia Night at Goodfellows…if you finish your lit paper by 11 p.m. Tuesday. Or use a study technique that’s been popular on Pinterest to get through your history reading: place a piece of candy on each paragraph or chapter of your textbook and tell yourself you can’t eat it until you finish reading the one before it. If you have a particularly hard week full of tests and papers due, celebrate by going to Southpoint and buying yourself a cute new top. Whatever works for you—just make sure you’re not cheating and checking Facebook after every paragraph you read instead of every chapter, like you promised yourself.
Best wishes for a more productive semester, collegiettes; we can almost see that 4.0 coming closer! What productivity techniques work the best for you? Let us know in the comments below!
Credits:
Book look (photo):http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l543/hercampusphoto/High%20School/e2b69a38.jpg
Studying for a test (photo): stock.xchng, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1126740
Studying (photo): http://www.hercampus.com/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/girl_studying_2.jpg
