The SIMPLEST Way to Stay Productive as a Student: Lessons I learned + Tools.
You clicked on this post, so my guess is you fall underneath one of the following people.
- You are tired of wasting your days away and want to actually do something with your life.
- You already feel productive but want to step it up a bit.
- You are either curious or think that all these self-help videos/blogs are just a waste of time.
- You’re a self-improvement junkie stuck in tutorial hell (you keep consuming these self-help videos & articles but never really do anything with the information).
Either way, this short blog post should help you end your infinite scrolling & procrastination, and help you get things done, faster.
Internal Environment
Goal Setting
Before you start your week, it’s a good idea to have everything you wish to achieve during said week typed out or written down somewhere. These are what we call goals.
Statistics show that those who write down their goals are more likely to achieve them as compared to those who don’t. You can never really forget about it if you took the time out of your day to type it somewhere and set a reminder for it.
Example, you may have a project due for next week. With everything that goes on in our lives, it would be easy to forget about said project. This is because our brains are constantly taking in information and “deleting” it, too. The brain can only take in so much. Forgetting is an active process. Your brain forgets information that is not repeatedly absorbed, hence why it’s so easy to let concepts slip in class.
Writing or typing down your goals for the week every Saturday or Sunday night will “tell” your brain that what you are trying to remember is important. Hence it will keep those goals at the back of your head whilst you work on other things. It also wouldn’t hurt to set up a reminder or alarm whenever you do type out a new goal. To give your memory an extra kick. I recommend Google Tasks for this. It’s a very easy app to integrate into one’s daily routine, very minimalistic and doesn’t offer distractions.
Now, if you are thinking of setting long-term goals, say, for a year or so (which is always a good thing) from now, then I recommend the “12 Month Celebration” plan. This is an easy to do exercise that asks you a simple question:
“In the twelve months of my life, what would I like to be celebrating?”
Of course, you can do this for the salient areas of your life, such as your body, your mind, your soul, your family and so forth.
E.g. “In 12 months, I would like to celebrate being in better shape that I was last year.” The goals don’t have to extravagant or world changing — just improvements you wish to see in yourself on a human scale.
As a person and not just a student, you will have a lot going on, so you may have a lot of goals you wish to accomplish. My advice is, amongst all those goals, pick the top 5 that correlate with your student career.
For example, you could keep “Getting and keeping a High Distinction throughout the year”, “Getting into better physical shape”, “Gaining work experience for my CV.” etc, as these correlate with becoming a more productive student. This is what I like to call focusing on what’s important. I recommend using Google Documents for this.
System Creation: A Schedule
Now that we have our most important goals set, we need to create and implement the systems needed to achieve those goals. This is actually James Clear’s selling point in his bestseller, “Atomic Habits”.
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” — James Clear.
Break down your goals into smaller pieces. Think daily/weekly tasks you need to complete consistently throughout the year to see small but definite improvements throughout the month. Take for example, “studying an extra 6 hours a week”. You’d simply break that down into “studying one more hour every study session (Monday to Saturday)”.
Now that you’ve got those tasks down, you should distil them into a schedule. What I like to use is Google Calander. I use it to block my time down to the last hour. This way, I know what I’m supposed to be doing and at what time. It leaves no room for procrastination.
Your schedule shouldn’t be rigid, but there should be a few non-negotiables, like time to study and complete homework assignments, exercise and working.
Take a look at this calendar as an example.
Make sure to include every task you need to complete weekly to get closer to your monthly/yearly goals, whilst accommodating down time.
We all have a limited amount of time and energy per day. We can’t waste it deciding on what needs to get done.
What About Motivation?
When it comes to productivity, I’m not a fan of motivation. Take a look at these graphs.
Motivation is a fleeting emotion. It doesn’t carry the driving force needed one needs to get things done even when having a bad day. But discipline doesn’t rely on emotions as the driving force. It is the driving force.
One way to gain discipline is through building proper habits that instil discipline within you. If you are interested about learning how to build discipline through habits, I wrote a student focused summary (an 8 min read) on “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones” and posted it on my website and on Medium. You can read it on either of these pages for free by clicking the links provided.
If you want a quick and simple way to get out of a runt, I recommend just staring at a blank wall or to focus on your breathing. This method helps you stop your infinite scroll through voluntary action. When we aren’t thinking, our brains default to the habits (good or bad) we have taught them. Unfortunately, scrolling through your phone mindlessly is probably one of them. Try staring at that wall or voluntary breathing before you reach for your phone. It may just save you a lot more time that you realise.
External Environment
Deep Work
You don’t need to study 8 hours a day to get good grades. It may definitely work, but I’m going to assume you want to use your time doing something else. This is where the idea of deep work comes into play.
“Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.” is another self-help book written by Cal Newport. In his book, Newport defines deep work as a state of distraction-free concentration when your brain works at its maximum potential.
I like to define it as working for uninterrupted concentrated blocks of time, usually ninety minutes each. This way, you can get way more stuff done in a fraction of the time, compared to staying over your desk for hours on end.
Our concentration falls off after a certain period of time spent staring at our books. Studying for eight hours on end in a distracted environment (not doing deep work) is just a waste of time.
One way to help get you into the deep workflow state is to prime your environment. Here are a few ways to help prime your workspace and mental landscape for deep work.
- Leave your phone on silent in another room for each study session. Or at least, keep it away from your desk. This increases the friction between you and your phone, making it harder to use.
- Study in a comfortable, quiet room, in areas you know won’t offer you distractions or in places that will force you to get into the study mood. Like an empty classroom or a minimalistic home office.
- Tell your family members about what you are trying to do. This way, they can’t disturb you under the pretence of not knowing.
- Invest in come noise cancelling headphones.
- Read books. Reading books improves your critical thinking, problem-solving skills and helps boost focus.
This should be the end of your infinite scroll. And remember to enjoy the process.
If you found this article useful, then please:
📗 You may also want to have a look at:
How to Become Better than 99% of Students in 6 Months: Atomic Habits + Project 50
Class, Exams, Paralysis and Wrong Answers: My Thoughts
