New Year, New Habits: Productivity Tips for 2020
The new year and the start of a new quarter presents an opportunity to bring about changes in our daily routines. If you are like me and have the attention span of a golden retriever, one of your resolutions is likely improving your productivity and becoming more efficient in getting things done. For those of us whose New Years resolutions are often empty promises, here are 6 ways to turn those verbal commitments into actionable changes.
1. Write it down. Lists are a fantastic way of visualizing all that you have to do. Whether you’re put together and like to handwrite checklists in a bullet journal in multicolored pens or you’re more of an on-the-go notes app kind of person, find a way of listing tasks that works for you and keep up with it. Often times people make to do lists only when they are overwhelmed, but at that point it is usually too late. Making a habit of writing down tasks will keep you several steps ahead of the things you need to do, making you plan ahead for the entire week, month, or quarter, rather than for those 11th hour manic Reg sessions.
2. Figure out your study habits. Identify what makes you most efficient at completing your work. Maybe you enjoy the chaos of the Reg first floor, maybe you cannot stand to see or hear another human being while you are hard at work. Whichever setting is best for you, note when something works and does not work and use it to your advantage.
3. Turn your phone screen to black and white while you’re working. If you can’t turn your phone off entirely while you are working, consider temporarily changing your settings to have your phone’s display be in black and white. This is a weird suggestion but, trust me, the sadness of grayscale will be a pretty effective way of stopping your endless scrolling through social media. This setting can usually be found under Settings - Accessibility - Display - Color Filters - Grayscale.
4. Don’t multitask. No, you cannot do your assignment and watch Netflix with your friends at the same time. No one can. Multitasking seems like it should help with completing tasks, but rather than getting to everything, it usually just drags out the process of completing things that could easily be done in a fraction of the time. Focus on one thing at a time. Work smarter not harder.
5. Compartmentalize and reflect. This school is especially cruel when it comes to assuming that students are nothing more than machines that churn out papers and psets. All of us are multidimensional human beings with our own stresses, conflicts, and personal lives. Sometimes you really try to be productive but nothing happens because your mind is distracted by any number of other things in your life. I find it helpful to keep a journal to clear my mind of all the other things going on in my life before I sit down to any time consuming task. Being able to completely exhaust your brain of distractors is a valuable tool for compartmentalizing and separating work from real life.
6. Loop playlists. If you work with music in the background, limit distractions caused by that by looping the same playlist again and again. Yes, you may never want to listen to those several songs ever again, but looping your playlist will also cut out distractions from paying attention to the music or lyrics. I’ll be the first to admit that I only listen to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack repeatedly while essay writing. No shame.
