3 Tips for Staying Productive During the School Year

If you are anything like me, you might struggle with staying productive sometimes.

For me, this is especially true when August rolls around and a new school year is starting. Whether you are playing a sport, enrolled in all the hardest classes, or working long hours at a job, everyone can struggle with staying productive and not procrastinating with homework. It can be easy to turn on Netflix and lie around all day, which is not a bad thing!

It can become stressful however when you have assignments due a huge pile of work. For this reason, I thought it might be helpful to compile some things I do to help my productivity.

Start Keeping a Planner

Ever since I was 14, I have written important dates, homework assignments, tests, and upcoming events in a planner. I was pretty disorganized, and this has did wonders for me.

Having one place where I keep everything has allowed me to stay aware of things that I have coming up.

Sometimes in the past, I would forget about a test until the night before. I felt extremely stressed because I knew I was unprepared. But seeing that I have a test in my planner, I want to study earlier than I normally would and always perform better on these tests. Being productive with schoolwork can be extremely helpful. This will help you to make better grades, and also helps you to stay less stressed out which is so important.

You can find a couple of planners from Amazon here.

Take Breaks

Taking breaks is KEY to preventing feeling burnt out and not wanting finish your work. Everybody is different, but taking a 5 minute break for 25 minutes of work is recommended.

If you are trying to complete any task for hours on end, it is easy to lose focus and interest in what you are doing. But if you take brain breaks to maybe eat a snack, drink some water, or just rest your mind, hopefully you won’t feel as inclined to just give up on what you are doing altogether.

Now, you need to take these breaks responsibly! It would not be productive to study for 5 minutes and then give yourself a two hour break.

If you use these breaks correctly they can be so helpful for your productivity and study habits.

Find Things Outside of School You Enjoy

Once I’m home from school and sports, I want to do one of two things: sleep or watch tv. While these are necessary, some days it’s the only thing I want to do. We can all relate to the fact that after a long day the last thing we want to do is homework.

I’ve found it helpful to find something I enjoy to serve as a buffer between school and homework.

This could include a variety of things like trying a new hobby, or working to improve at something you enjoy. For me, this is cooking. Cooking is a nice way to help me decompress, and does not leave me feeling sluggish. After I’m done, I’m ready to start homework because I have done something calming.

Cooking is not for everyone, but we can all find something that will make us feel refreshed and ready to accomplish daily tasks.

I hope some of these tips are helpful! I would like to remind everyone that even when I do all these things, some days I still don’t feel as productive as I would like to be, and that’s ok. Giving yourself grace is huge and obviously your not going to be perfect all of the time.

It’s all about finding out what works for you so that you can be more productive and less stressed out.

Read this article on keeping a productive workspace for some more tips!

Gabrielle

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