Procrastination has been one of the biggest enemies of students while studying or any other productive engagement. The thought of ‘Oh! I will do it later’ proves to be disastrous, and cumulates the burden of work and studies all at once at the end, leaving the student in hyper stress and degrading the quality of study and work done finally.
While no student wants this kind of situation to arise, avoiding procrastination is actually a very courageous step, which requires intense discipline and commitment. As soon as a student hears words like ‘discipline’ and ‘commitment’, it is natural that he/she assumes the further processes to be difficult and boring. However, we are here with 5 extremely effective tips to stop procrastinating and start studying, especially for students.
- Say it aloud
Seems a bit weird, but it is highly effective if you start practicing. Whenever you feel that you are trying to procrastinate or being distracted, just say it aloud to yourself –
“I am procrastinating my work and it is not good for me. I will repent this.”
The moment you say it aloud to yourself, your consciousness shifts from procrastination and you start feeling ‘I should not procrastinate.’ You become aware of your procrastination. You start feeling bad that you are trying to do something that will harm you. This acts as a trigger warning to yourself before something adverse happens, and thus you react by realising your mistake and getting back to work.
- 2. Start eliminating the distractions before your study time
Suppose you have fixed the time of 6 pm to study. In order to make it obvious and reduce the chances of procrastination, start getting into the zone from 5:45 pm.
- Turn off the mobile data or notifications of all your social media apps.
- Switch off the TV if you were watching it right at 5:45.
- If you have a habit of drinking tea/coffee while studying, utilise this time to make it.
- Start taking the books and notebooks that you will require while studying and place them on your study table.
- Do everything else that you need for a study environment (eg – switching on the table lamp, finding pens/pencils, etc.)
Since you have now created an environment and have entered into a zone where you usually study, you are less likely to procrastinate your work. The highest probability of procrastination arises when you do not give to yourself this ‘zoning’ period to enter into the environment slowly. Therefore, if you keep scrolling social media till 5:55 pm, you won’t feel like changing your state and will opt for procrastinating studies.
- 3. Become accountable to yourself
Although this is an ex-post factor, it will help you tremendously. It advisable for students to keep a diary (preferably manual, not digital) and note down three things in it every day:
- what work you want to complete today?
- How much of it you actually completed?
- Why were you not able to complete the work?
The third question in this series hold the utmost importance. Start evaluating the reasons and writing it down. Writing out the reasons yourself is very important as if the reason is silly, which led you to procrastinate, you will feel a bit guilty of what you did. The fear of feeling guilty again will act as your motivation to avoid procrastination and complete your studies the next day.
- 4. Respect your biological clock
This is one of the major mistakes that students make while preparing a study schedule which triggers them to procrastinate more frequently.
We all have separate biological clocks and the easiest way to be productive and active is to respect it. Do not work against your biological clock.
Say, for example, that you are someone who doesn’t feel very productive in the afternoon. Do not try to go against your body and fix a time slot of studying in the afternoon. You may be able to follow it for a couple of days, but after that the chances of you procrastinating in this particular time slot will drastically increase. It is better to find out a time when your body automatically feels productive and go along with it.
- 5. Break down big tasks into small chunks
Need to write a 100 page assignment? Well, write 5 pages daily. Need to finish a 300 page book in one month? Well, focus on reading only 10 daily. Have lots of work to do? Break it into small pieces and focus on each piece, instead of seeing the whole task.
Breaking down the task into smaller chunks motivates you to complete it, as you only need to do a little bit today in order to accomplish your goal. This reduces the chances of procrastination and keeps you going.
We hope that these tips will help you in avoiding procrastination and will keep you on track. All the best!
