Hi! I am a junior in college currently and while I still find an extreme level of difficulty with fighting procrastination time to time, I do have a few tips that have genuinely helped me throughout the past few years. I’ll list them below.
Some of these things might seem a little unrelated, but getting your life more organized and under control does wonders for your ability to focus on your daily tasks. I started off in college with a completely reversed circadian rhythm, and zero time management skills. These are just the steps that led me into being much much more proficient. I brought my GPA from a 2.0 to a 3.8 just by organizing my life and putting in a slightly higher level of effort. My inability to prioritize was to blame for my grades, not level of understanding of course material. It really does wonders.
01. Get your sleeping schedule under control. I used to sleep until 3 PM and stay up until 4 AM on my days off. Now, some people just genuinely get more stuff done during the nighttime, but a lot of people don’t. Waking up only hours before the sun sets just makes your brain more fizzled, I think. It makes it more overwhelming to complete all of your tasks when you wake up with most of the day already gone. It absolutely, undeniably works wonders just to fix this issue alone. You really don’t have to give up sleep to be a straight A student, no matter what everyone says. Waking up early in the day makes you feel more in control, and gives you more time to complete your tasks if you’d rather spend your evenings doing enjoyable past times, not cramming.
01(b). Make your bed. This is kind of an unrelated sidebar but I felt compelled to include it regardless, simply because it not only helps with the above but because it’s just a good piece of advice in general. Making your bed after you get out can keep you from slipping back into it. Getting back into bed is practically giving into procrastination even before you commit the crime itself. And it’s such a pain to do, especially if you have shams and decor that go on top of it, that you feel guilty about the idea of messing it all up in the middle of the day to crawl back in. Aside from this, it makes you feel good. It is rewarding to slip back into a made bed after doing everything you had to do for the day. And even if you get nothing done, you still made your bed in the morning, and that’s a great thing.
02. Invest in a planner. I was never somebody to use planners regularly, but it really helps to have the weekly structures (M-F & Sat Sun). There is a bullet point below that will prove the usefulness of this one. You can structure your week with a planner. And it makes it so much harder to forget your tasks or assignments when you have them written down. You can check them off as you complete them. It’s also great for bills. (I think the only reason I finally broke down and consistently used mine was because I bought a $35 dollar one and my financial guilt convinced me to actually use it.)
03. Block access to websites that are distracting. I have an app on my Mac called “Self Control”, free on the App Store. If you have a different brand of computer there will definitely be something similar. I have a bad habit of getting on Reddit or Facebook or YouTube when I am procrastinating, so I use it to just. Cut myself off, lol. You can set an amount of time to block it and you are legitimately unable to unblock the website for the amount of time you select, even if you delete the app.
04. Divide your time into smaller blocks. Sometimes when you sit down with three hours of work to do in one subject and four in another you get really intimidated and it makes it easier to fall into procrastination. I really do understand this struggle because I am learning Russian, and I commit approximately 4 hours to it a day. The only way to do this, at least for me, is to divide it into 30 minute chunks. You work for 30 minutes, or for however long it takes to complete one task if you prefer it that way, and then you take a breather. It can be for 10 minutes, 30, or even an hour — it depends on your own preference. This way it’s easier, especially if your attention span makes it hard to focus on one thing for too long.
05. Plan ahead. At least for the rest of the week. On Monday morning, I sit down and look at all of the assignments and chapters I have assigned for the week. I also plan out my Russian studying, though most of that for now is self study, so I have more control over it. I will write it out in my planner. The way that I do it, and you don’t have to do it this way because sometimes your school schedule might not allow it, is I use one day for one subject or class. For example, last semester: Monday was for computer science, Tuesday was for Russian, Wednesday was for History, Thursday was for my other History class, and Friday was for government. Sometimes Sat had to be used too, but when I did it like this I had no homework on Saturday or Sunday, with rare exceptions! Having an entire weekend free is an amazing feeling. Especially when the semester is getting particularly overwhelming.
Ugh, this got very long! I apologize for that. I rambled a bit. But that is just my two cents! I hope that pertains to your question.
I feel like at this point it’s something I can’t ever fully get rid of.. my anxiety and fear of failing honestly pulls me out of procrastination mode the most and actively forcing myself to work with a promise of a self-reward (like a nice snack or something) is what keeps me from procrastinating too much
