Productivity is a major buzz word on social media lately, and for good reason. With so many distractions these days, it’s a struggle to stay focused on the task at hand, manage your time well, and give your best effort on assignments. If you’re looking to adjust any of these areas of your life to perform better academically, these are our seven productivity tips to study like a Harvard student.
This is one of the productivity tips you’ll probably hear the most from billionaires and entrepreneurs, and it may be due to the fact that study after study has shown that making your bed in the morning sparks productivity, gives you an early sense of accomplishment, and even improves your mood and happiness.
By making your bed in the morning, you’re setting your intentions that today will be a productive one, and helping yourself feel productive almost always works better than forcing it to be productive.
With so many tasks to juggle, from errands around the house and academic coursework to your social life and relaxation, creating a balance can be challenging. Grace Beverly, a social media influencer at Oxford University, makes use of a ranked to-do list to balance work, social, and school, and it’s a perfect way to visualise your commitments and keep yourself focused.
Not only that, but it will also make you feel guilty for procrastinating if you’ve accomplished something at the bottom of your to-do list (meaning it was less important) when you failed to achieve what was at the top (and what was most important to do that day). Without a proper to-do list, either physical or digital, any other productivity tips are rendered useless.
If you’re looking for productivity tips, it’s likely that you may be trying to multi-task your way through your responsibilities to complete them all at once, and thus be more productive. However, multi-tasking has been proven to actually decrease productivity, as switching from task to task impairing your cognitive ability and making your brain more prone to distractions.
Instead of multi-tasking, focus your energy on one task at a time. Though it may feel boring in the moment, you’ll actually end up being able to work for longer periods of time with increased concentration, and you will likely see better results on your work because of it.
Whether you’re deep in revision season or just starting a new semester, I cannot recommend scheduling enough. By scheduling out your day by the hour, you’re holding yourself accountable for actually working in that time period, reminding yourself of what you need to achieve that day, and ensuring you’re taking meaningful breaks for relaxation, eating, or socialising by scheduling that in as well.
This is one of the productivity tips most often seen used by Ivy League YouTubers, like John Fish at Harvard University or Grace at Oxford, but don’t let yourself be put off by intense schedules that are down to the minute, colour-coded, and neat and tidy. Though this can be helpful for some people, it’s all about finding what style works best for you.
Though you may not expect productivity tips to include taking breaks, it’s important to note that taking breaks isn’t time wasted. In fact, most Harvard or Oxford students (among other high-ranked universities) swear by incorporating breaks into their revision as it will improve your concentration, help you avoid study burn-out, and keep you sane and less stressed.
While taking breaks, try to avoid activities that “melt your brain,” like watching Netflix or YouTube videos. Instead, take a walk outside, cook a healthy meal, or socialise with friends in person, and you’ll keep your brain on the same productive rhythm.
Similar to taking breaks, try to switch up your location if you’re feeling your productivity and concentration decreasing. While you may be able to stay focused for hours in the same spot of the library, changing where you’re working frequently will keep you energised and allow you to restart your concentration when you switch your study spot.
I would recommend working in spots with people around, like a library or café, at a desk, or anywhere with lots of sunlight, but it’s all about finding where you work the best. However, you should definitely avoid working in your bed, as it will tell your brain it’s time to sleep or chill and be hard to stay focused and productive.
If you’re struggling with staying off your phone and social media while working, try using an app. There are lots of phone and laptop apps you can download that will limit your social media usage. You can set the app for a certain time period to motivate you to keep working for the time allocated for focused study.
Flora (or Forest) is a phone app where you set a timer for how long you want to work and you to grow a tree in the app for that time. You can also turn on a paid add-on where you pay for a real tree to be planted when you grow a tree in the app! However, if you touch your phone at that time and try to get on Instagram or iMessage, your tree will die.
SelfControl is an app for your computer that works a similar way by setting a timer for how long you want to stay focused, but you can set sites that you usually get distracted on while working (i.e. YouTube, Facebook, Netflix), and it will block those sites if you try to access them.
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