1. invent a deadline for yourself and stick to it. either you finish things early and have free time for other things or you don’t meet your deadline and still have a few days to catch up before it matters
2. celebrate every little achievement. it’s frustrating to wait to get an assignment/exam back because you get no immediate satisfaction. after every task you complete go for a walk, see a friend, cook, get a hot chocolate. feel good about your progress without having to wait for someone else to tell you that you’re doing a good job
3. organise your to-do list using these 4 categories:
important and urgent - do this now!
important but not urgent - schedule this
not important but urgent - delegate this or schedule it for later
not important and not urgent - don’t do this until you have done everything else
4. divide and conquer. if you have a paper to write divide it up into easy chunks e.g. plan/first draft/second draft/checking etc. and tackle these one at a time. don’t just write ‘history paper’ on your to-do list because you will feel unproductive until you tick it off, even if you are making progress
5. don’t forget to put self-care on your to-do list. make sure every day you write down and tick off ‘drink water’ ‘get some fresh air’ ‘take some time away from the computer’ ‘brush teeth’ ‘shower’. you will feel productive and also be looking after yourself, both of which will boost your general productivity
6. study slots not study tasks. break up your tasks into time slots and write those on your to-do list. instead of ‘revise German Unification’ my to-do list will say ‘1 hour German Unification’. after 1 hour I will stop and tick off that task. then write it again later or the next day if I want to do more. it is easier to quantify tasks (especially humanities/arts revision) by time rather than by topic.
7. have a visual indicator of your progress. if you think you need to spend 6 hours on German Unification in total then draw a rectangle and divide it in 6 and colour one segment in for every hour you work so you can see your progress. this will serve as motivation and as a reward for hard work
8. find a friend with a similar/better work ethic than you and sit together in a library and study hard. it’s nice to surround yourself with people who are also working hard for motivation, and for someone to talk to during your study breaks
for some unconventional study tips click here or here
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