It took my a few years to perfect my productivity abilities, but after some time I finally realized all of the things that were keeping me down, so I wanted to share them with you all!
1. Staying Logged In to Facebook - This is the worst thing for you when you are trying to get things accomplished. The amount of time that I wasted on Facebook in my first year at college (it also didn't help that I was homesick) could probably span 8 weeks. By staying automatically logged in to any social media, all I had to do was go to the page and I was sucked into it for easily thirty minutes. This not only sets you back those thirty minutes, but also the amount of time that it takes for you to find again what you were working on and reorganize your thoughts. To combat this, my first tip is to click the 'log out' button on your social media settings. Then the next time you log in, make sure that you don't have "Automatically Log In" checked or just log out each time you go on. This will make it less automatic of a thing to go onto your accounts and you also have to consciously choose to log in. It's like another barrier of protection from decreased productivity.
2. Keeping your Phone on Your Lap - It's almost the same thing as staying logged into your social media accounts. If you keep your cell phone right next to you at all time, you will be twice as likely to grab it right when it dings with a notification. Whether a text message, instagram like, or retweet, it will only keep you from getting what you need to do done. Especially when it dings every few minutes. My suggestion is to keep it in your backpack, at the end of your bed, or in another room while you are working on things. You could also turn text messages and notifications to silent, while keeping your phone calls loud so that if someone is really trying to reach you, you'll be able to answer it!
3. Working with friends - Your study habits are different from your roommate's, your best friend's, and your sister's, so studying with them might actually distract you more than it will help you. With everyone else's phones going off, and notifications dinging every few seconds, the likelihood of distractions intensifies. While studying with people in your class can help you with the material, you definitely all need to be committed to getting work done in order for it to work. To fix your friends decreasing your productivity, it may be necessary to curtail studying with friends and just spending your free time with them. I know when I worked in the library alongside friends, I had to be working on a project that was okay to be distracted by: PowerPoints, outlines, highlighting ... etc. anything that wasn't too brain-intensive but something that still needed to be done. Set guidelines for yourself so that you know when it is appropriate for friend distractions and when you really need to hunker down and work by yourself.
4. Your Study Habits - It takes a while to get into a rhythm for your studying and homework patterns, but you need to make sure the ones that you are continuing are the ones that help you out the most. You may find that working in your dorm room is distracting or working in the library makes you break your concentration. Every person is different, so if you consistently find yourself looking up from your laptop or your eye wandering around the room while you are reading, you may need to think of a better habit. My tip is to try new methods and get feedback from people in your life. Learn how they study and what works best for them. It may not work for you, but it could spark a new idea to help your stay on task and focused to finish!
5. Food and Drink - To this day, nothing is more distracting to me than drinking a Frappucinno and eating popcorn. I'm so focused on enjoying those items that it distracts me from what I should really be working on. You may think you're saving time by combining eating with school work, but it honestly just distracts you more (especially when you drop some chili on your laptop). To combat this, use your eating time to focus solely on that or to browse your social media accounts. This could definitely kill two birds with one stone, but make sure you're combining something that is mindless with your eating so not to decrease your productivity even more.
As we enter the new school year, it is really important that you start making your productivity a priority. Doing that at the start of the semester before papers and tests start happening, is only going to keep you organized and focused as the school year progresses. Are there any tips that you have for increasing productivity or something you cut out of your schedule that used to decrease your productivity. Share below so we can all learn! Have a great weekend!
enjoy the chase,
skylar
