Top Tips For Better Productivity

There’s a reason productivity seems to be one of the buzzwords on the lips of many of the most successful people. Harnessing the ability to get more done in less time is a key to accomplishing great things. That’s easier said than done, but the tips below can help you get started.

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Learn As A Student

College doesn’t just teach you the skills you learn specifically from the curriculum; it teaches you life skills as well. While stereotypes about lazy students abound, the truth is that there’s nothing like a rigorous college program to teach you how to be productive and organized, especially during crunch times such as exams or when big projects are due.

You might crash and burn a couple of times before you figure it out, it turns out your probably don’t actually do your best work on all-nighters fueled by caffeine and panic, but this may be the first time in your life when you really have to learn how to get the most out of a limited amount of time.

Take some of the distracting life pressure off by organizing your finances well before your first semester, applying for financial aid and scholarships you might be eligible for. Look into private student loans as well. If you are worried about carrying debt, a student loan calculator can help you figure out what you will be paying after you graduate.

Work From Lists

If you look at most time management systems, one thing might start to stand out about all of them. At their core, they are ultimately about making to-do lists, even if they come in a more sophisticated and complex package.

If one of those systems works for you, there’s no reason to fix what isn’t broken, but at the same time, there’s nothing wrong with the old-fashioned to-do list, which can be as simple as entries in a text file or on a piece of paper. To-do lists give you a series of tasks to march through your day with. They also give you a realistic sense of what you need to do and what you are actually capable of doing each day.

Work In Short Bursts

One of the most popular productivity hacks has so many adherents for a reason: it works. The timeframes don’t matter; you can work in bursts of 15 minutes, 30 minutes or more, whatever is comfortable for you. The psychology behind it is that it’s a lot easier to tackle something difficult for a short time than to look ahead at a hours-long marathon.

But beyond that, it simply allows you to focus intently in a way that you can’t always do for long periods. Deep work or work that requires a sense of flow may not always be amenable to this technique, but experiment with it and see what tasks you can knock out quickly using it.

Remember Down Time

It might seem strange to read about downtime in an article about productivity, but the fact is that you can’t go-go-go all the time. In fact, doing so is actually detrimental to your productivity. Time off means that you’ll be able to relieve stress and return to your work fresh and be able to focus more and get more done.