Procrastination can hinder the way we study and learn and is often frustrating for students to overcome. Below are some of our tips to help you with procrastination and increase your time spent studying.
- Have specific goals to complete each day - goals like complete exercise 6A and finish last week's tuition homework will enable you to get started on work, as you have a goal. Tasks such as "do maths homework" are not as sufficient as this goal is too vague and gives you "too many" choices which may encourage you to put things off and discourage you from actually completing your work.
- Reward conditioning - after you achieve a goal, reward yourself with a treat. This is effective as it takes advantage of an inherent human desire for short-term satisfaction
- Take accountability of your work with real life consequences. For example, if you do not complete the homework, you must buy your friend dinner. By having something which holds you accountable, you are constantly checking in and avoid procrastination to get your work done.
- Building habits. Relying purely on motivation is only a short term solution which may spiral into uncontrolled procrastination. Thus, by ensuring you have a set schedule or routine which you habitually attend to, you can get work done more efficiently and effectively.
- Do exam questions and UNDERSTAND what you are learning - do not simply rote learn content. Know the WHYS behind calculus, trigonometry, etc. Iit has been shown that understanding content will lead to better memory retention over simply trying to memorize something, and will enable you to be able to answer a wider variety of questions as you know the reasoning behind concepts.
