How to Succeed in 2018
New Year’s Eve has come and gone. Classes have started, and deadlines already beginning to pile up; that lofty New Year’s resolution you made a couple weeks ago that you were definitely going to keep may be seeming a little unrealistic now.
While you may be slowly throwing in the towel, I believe that it is not too late to get back on track.To do that however, you will need more than just your own motivation.
1. Track your habits
Whatever your resolution is, whether it be to improve your grades, exercise, or learn a new skill it is important to identify the habits that will help you to get there. Once you have identified helpful habits keep track of them. By tracking the habits you are hoping to acquire this year you are able to motivate yourself to stick with them, as well as creating accountability with yourself. Keep at it long enough and you won’t need to think about them to do them; until then keep on tracking.
2. Create pre-planned work periods
By setting aside time dedicated to a single task or project you can avoid falling into small, unnecessary tasks and distractions. Rather than working on that paper when you get to it you will be working on it for the time you allotted. This helps you regularly put the time into your goal as well as to be focused when working towards it.
3. Keep an accomplishment journal
Once you have gotten back into the grind of the semester it is easy to feel like you haven’t accomplished anything as the days blur together. By keeping a daily log of everything you have done you can see how much you actually do in a day. To see concrete evidence of everything you have done is a great motivational tool.
4. Design your space to make distractions harder to get to
It’s happened to all of us, you go to open a tab to do research for a class or look up class schedules or gym hours but instead magically end up browsing Netflix. One way to limit yourself from getting distracted is to create barriers to distractions; for example, you can log out of Netflix so that you need to sign in whenever you want to watch. The extra time between yourself and a distraction can give you the time needed to decide it is not worth it. The reverse of this is to make things you want to do more accessible; for example, keeping a gym bag packed and ready at the door so that when you want to go to the gym you can just grab it and go.
5. Disable your notifications
When you are sitting down to get work done nothing is more distracting than a phone vibrating with a notification. Even if you are not planning to answer right away, you check, and if you’re pretty sure it was someone else at the tables phone, you check. By disabling all notifications, including those little read bubbles, you will be better able to use your phone when you want/need rather than letting your phone use you.