Slowly sliding towards exams and wondering how you can ensure you revise adequately?
Is the pressure building, and instead of feeling more motivated, you just want to bury your head in the sand?
Yup. Been there!
While this time is undoubtedly one of the busiest for many students, it’s important not to let your doubts get the better of you. Preparing, setting aside proper study time, and focusing on utilising the right tools is the best way to reach success.
If you’re struggling to get on top of things right now, you might need to shake things up. And we have three weird but effective ways to help you do that!
What Productivity IS & What It ISN’T
Being productive shouldn’t be a vague concept we try to fill our days with. It needs to be based on the things we actually need to get done!
There’s no point filling our hours with tasks and activities that don’t need immediate attention so that we can ‘feel productive’. True productivity comes from prioritising what we need to do and making a proactive plan for how to do it (even if those things are a bit boring!).
When we make this our mindset around productivity, we truly start to feel motivated!
So, if you want to start being really productive, first, you need to:
- Make a list of ALL the things you need to get done.
- Work through the list and decide which tasks are ‘would like to do’ and which are ‘need to do’.
- Rank those tasks by priority, starting with the most urgent ones.
- Create a realistic timeframe to complete these tasks – it’s better to get two things done well in a day than try and complete ten poorly.
- Try one of the hacks below to help you make a start!
3 Weird But Effective Productivity Hacks
Not every productivity hack works the same for everyone, so it’s definitely worth trialling a few to see what’s right for you.
Below are three to help you make a start:
1. DON’T Multi-task, Single-task!
David Strayer, a Professor of Psychology, and his colleagues researched how people master multi-tasking. They found only 2% of people are effective at juggling multiple tasks!
Further research by the American Psychological Association found that multi-tasking actually reduced productivityby up to 40%.
Our brains aren’t designed to focus on multiple things at once. When we do, we limit our ability to do our best work. While we might be used to multi-tasking because it’s often encouraged, just focus on one thing at a time when it comes to your studies.
2. Give the Pomodoro Technique a Go
Created in the late 1980s by Francesco Cirillo, the Pomodoro technique is a time management method. The technique sees the day broken down into manageable chunks, with a task assigned to each chunk and a little ‘well done’ break in between!
For example, you might:
- Revise and prepare exam notes for one hour.
- Take a 20-minute break to do something fun.
- Do some housework for 30 minutes.
- Revise and prepare exam notes for one hour.
- And so on.
It takes some planning, but if you have multiple exams to prepare for, this technique is an excellent way to divide your time to create the most productive outcomes.
The good news is you can decide how long your ‘chunks’ are. Working for twenty-five minutes with a short five-minute break in between is heralded by the technique, but it’s entirely up to you.
3. Eat the Frog!
No, not an actual frog – we’re being metaphorical here! Mark Twain is quoted as having once said:
“Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day.”
The message is that tackling your most challenging task at the start of your day frees you up to get on with all the other things you’d rather be doing.
Your mind is fresh and focused by facing the dreaded task (the frog!). It can help us feel more productive and safe, knowing that we’ve already had a big win for our productive self.
Which Will You Try?
What do you think? Does the Pomodoro Technique speak to you, or will you eat the proverbial frog sometime soon?
You don’t have to pick just one of these techniques, either! You probably already picked up on the fact that you can combine them to supercharge your productivity.
Give it a go this exam season!
