Simple Ways to Increase Productivity at Home

Being an active student, I know that sometimes there is a great difficulty committing yourself to any one thing. Distractions are plentiful and the urge to indulge in those distractions are often subtle. Often a simple click to the Internet can lead to precious hours wasted on only quasi-interesting content. In the end, you haven’t finished xyz assignment and it is now quite late at night; you end up tired and angry at yourself for allowing your procrastination to devour your time. No one wants to be in this situation and I have simple tips to help you up and out of this hole.

Schedule it out!

I have found a very useful way to qualm potential distractions is by taking extra steps to schedule out my days. At school I will write out all things I need to accomplish (whether it be school related or otherwise) in an agenda book. As soon as I get home, I would transfer that information to ical, update a “to-do” widget on my mac’s dashboard, and write down other details about assignments or test dates on a virtual sticky note. As you read this you might be thinking to yourself, “Isn’t this a waste of time already? If you have already filled out an agenda book why the added steps?”. Let me explain.

By filling out the information repeatedly it helps me get a feel of the difficulty of the assignment and also cements that assignments importance. Repeatedly writting “Biology test on Thursday” serves to cement that there is an upcoming difficult obstacle that I will need to prepare for by studying. Not only that, by scheduling out my time I manage my time more effectively which cuts down on waste. If you schedule an item to be accomplished in a given time frame, chances are you are going to do it. Some obscure date a while off in the future is less meaningful than a short term goal that you have chosen for yourself to accomplish. By scheduling out your time, you break down that big intimidating assignment into small bite-size portions that are easier to swallow.. more on this later.

Although I have a mac, I have heard more than once from several of my friends that igoogle is a useful feature of google which has tools to manage one’s schedule (such as a full fledged calendar). I often set up my agenda book right beside myself on my desk and keep my calendar program open. This way if I look up I will again be reminded of the importance of the assignment and be less likely to get distracted. The main purpose is to keep your eyes on your work and your mind off of possible hindrances.