High productivity is essential for your success in college. Although you may have struggled with managing and concentrating on various tasks like reading, turning in assignments on time, managing your finances, and maintaining good relationships, staying productive as a student does not have to be a very difficult task. By applying the following tips, you can improve your productivity, obtain better grades and even have more free time for social activities.
1. Set Clear Goals
To be more productive as a student, you need to set precise goals for each course each semester, and avoid all forms of aimless activities. You should know the exact grades you are working towards in your academics. Similarly when you join a club on campus, you must set definite goals for your participation.
Write down your goals in bold typeface and get them printed. Then place copies of these goals on your wardrobe or locker door, on your pin board, reading table, and any other place where you will be able to reading them many times daily. Eventually, your mind will begin to visualise the fulfillment of your goals and you have stronger motivation to work towards their fulfillment.
2. Focus on 3 to 6 Tasks Daily
After setting goals for a semester, you must work towards achieving those goals every single day. A proven method of ensuring a productive day is to have a ‘to do’ list. You may use the traditional pen and notepad to create your list or use one of the powerful apps that have been designed to help you plan activities, with calendars, keep record of assignments, grades and other things.
However, it is better to stick to the most effective method, so you don’t get bogged down with planning when you should be working on completing your tasks. Each day, make sure you write down at least 3 or a maximum of 6 things that you want to accomplish. To enhance your productivity, they should be the most vital things to do for the day. Also, if you don’t have the time and energy necessary to impress the school and you need help after all, check out how WGU Students deal with this issue.
3. Schedule Time for Each Task
After writing down the most important tasks to complete for the day, attach completion times for each task. As a student, you must realize that it is better to work on tasks for about one hour at a time, take short 5 to 10 minutes break and then return to the next task instead of attempting to spend 3 hours on one task. You should also avoid multitasking because it will reduce concentration and make you less productive.
If you schedule time for each activity, you will be more productive and you will be able to give each course adequate attention throughout the semester. This will influences memory capacity and enables you to avoid leaving your reading material or term papers till the deadline or examination period is very close.
4. Get Enough Sleep Daily
Make sure you have at 6 to 7 hours of high quality sleep daily. You may not be able to sleep for 8 to 9 hours as recommended by some physicians and sleep experts, but you should avoid reading all night on a regular basis. Skimping on sleep will have adverse effects on your focus and it will affect your ability to recall or absorb information.
Inadequate sleep will also increase your stress and anxiety levels and weaken your immune system. Even if you are in your finals and you have to cope with the strains of passing all your papers and completing your project, you should work more efficiently. Working for very long hours can lead to brain fatigue.
Conclusion
We have shared a few tips and ideas on how to boost your productivity while studying. You should take a step further now and brainstorm on how to apply these tips so you will have better results at the end of the academic session.