1. Planning Your Next Day (So Future You Won’t Have To)

Those who wish to be successful should get into the groove of planning out your next day. Scribble it into an Etch-A-Sketch, write it on your hand, use a pen and quill to get it on a notepad, you can even plan it out on your phone! Writing and planning in any way, shape or form will help. To get your brain juices moving and motivated for the following day, write down a detailed plan for the next day (preferably before bed) so that when you wake, you will have a place to start.

2. Catching Enough Z’s

Getting your beauty sleep is just as important as eating a well balanced breakfast. It leaves you feeling energized and prepared for the next day ahead. As a general rule of thumb, adults require 7-9 hours of sleep, if you don’t get sufficient enough sleep, you risk not being at your fullest potential. From personal experience, I can say that trying to power through work late into the night when you could be sleeping just leaves me feeling more exhausted. Those who lack sleep tend to be less attentive with a slower response time which can be just as dangerous during study time as it is while driving a car. Sleep deprivation is the killer for most students. So, for the sake of productivity, grab that eye mask and your stuffed animals and get to bed.

3. Make Daily Goals For Tasks You Want To Achieve That Day (NOT Someday)

Now that you are well rested, you can begin your day. Referencing the plan you (hopefully) made for the next day, comb through and write down, on a separate piece of paper what goals you would like to achieve for that specific day. These goals may look like: finish module three, read two chapters from psychology textbook, rsvp for Betty’s Chuck-E-Cheese birthday bash, set up a dentist appointment. Any and everything that you wish to complete during that day, should be written down. In a 2015 study conducted by Cheryl Travers, PhD, she found that goal-related writing improved a students academic performance. You may even think of it as a simplified version of your plan of attack for the day. Having a set of goals should help keep you organized and on top of your tasks.

4. It Takes Two To Tango

To begin picking off tasks, as a monkey would pick lice off his monkey girlfriend, you can follow a method known as the “two minute” method. This method stems off of David Allen’s GTD method, which we will discuss later. Put simply, the two minute method states that any task that you can complete in two minutes or less, you should complete right away. The example dentist appointment I referenced earlier? Only takes about two minutes to give their office a phone call. An rsvp? Just shoot a quick text. This way, you can cross out the easiest, quickest tasks and cut down on your list of goals so that you can now focus more attentively on the larger goals at hand. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

5. Slow And Steady Wins The Race

Hey friend, I don’t know if you’re aware of this but, humans weren’t meant to multitask. How could we have been able to bang rocks together long enough to discover fire AND watch out for predators? It would’ve been difficult, and even if you were to pull it off, both of the tasks would be done poorly. I used to think that multitasking was the key to completing all my tasks in a timely manner. I used to do two or sometimes three things at once just so I could cross it off my to-do list. However, when you divide your attention between tasks, disaster happens, just look at what happens to people who text and drive. In fact, college students who multitask while studying or in class tend to have lower grade averages than those who don’t. It is far better to focus your attention on one task at a time however small or large to prevent sub-par performance.

6. Gettin’ Busy

Now, we can dive into the work. The best way that I’ve personally found to tackle tough and/or time consuming coursework is to follow David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” (GTD) methodology. It produces effective results if you follow the five steps carefully.
1.) Capture: write down any and everything that pops into your head on a scratch piece of paper so that you may revisit it at a later time without forgetting it.

2.) Process and Define: make specific and actionable next steps for a goal. For example, if one of your daily goals was to clean your room, a few actionable next steps would be to pick up trash, take out dirty cups/dishes and make the bed.

3.) Organize: place information and reminders into word specific categories. If you needed to, for example, send an email to your professor and to your study group, you could organize them under the word “phone” or “computer.” Setting up context clues will help keep your tasks well organized.

4.) Review: complete weekly reviews of projects, deadlines and new items. To get things done, you must review regularly.

5.) Time: be sure to complete all your tasks within an appropriate time frame.

7. All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy

Without this balance of work and play, I lose track of time and I increase my risk of burnout which leaves me unmotivated to continue. I like to work in my play at the end of tasks or during breaks between tasks. It’s never a good idea to work for long periods of time without breaks. The body must rest and have time to form ideas, thoughts and memories about what is being presented to them. If you bulldoze right through as I used to do, I’m certain that you will end up like me; without a single thought behind those eyes.