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School is back! Tips for a Productive School Year

The school year is here again, and after over a year spent attending it online, for many, that means readjusting to attending school in person. This year, teachers may also show less leniency towards late work which means that students will need to complete and turn in assignments on time. With that being said, here are a few tips on how to maximize your productivity this school year.

The Basics

Get enough sleep: Sleep is a significant factor of physical development, and it largely contributes to our ability to focus. Many high schoolers do not get enough sleep, so make sure to aim for 8-10 hours consistently.

Eat healthily: Food, similarly to sleep, affects the efficiency and development of our bodies and minds. Highly processed and sugary foods limit your ability to perform highly. This is in comparison to foods high in fiber, omega fatty acids, or protein.

Determine whether you will be a digital or paper student (or a hybrid of the two): Some students remember things more easily by writing them down on paper, but some find digital notes to be easier to take and review. In the end, both options have pros and cons, so it is us to you to decide what methods/platforms you use to organize and plan during this school year.

Create a daily checklist. It is good to set daily micro-goals, whether they are for personal growth or homework that needs to get done. Either way, once they are completed and checked off of a list, you can look back and see all that you accomplished that day. I recommend that your list contains 3-5 tasks daily as not to overload yourself.

Don’t sit in the back of class. Sitting in the back of your class is a simple mistake that many students (in larger classes) make. The closer you are to the front, the more likely you are to pay attention to instruction.

Studying

Quizlet, Quizlet, Quizlet: The platform that is tried-and-true for so many of us is still here and now offers an upgraded version (Quizlet plus) with more features. 

Find a note taking method that suits you. There is an abundance of methods for students to take notes, and some are preferred more than others by different students. A few methods for note-taking are bullet point, outline, Cornell, mind-map, flow-chart, and the sentence method.

Limit your access to electronics while completing tasks: Turn off your phone. Place it in another room, or in a drawer, or under your mattress. Remove it from your sight in order to have a study session free of the distractions that phones present. 

Schedule time to study: Time management is becomes crucial in high school, especially for homework or project completion. Allot part of your daily (or weekly depending on how heavy your course-load is) schedule to studying. This allows for more productivity and deadline awareness than simply completing tasks sporadically whenever you have an extra minute.

Try the Pomodoro Technique: This is a study method that has recently gotten popular on social media. The technique breaks study sessions down into 25-minute work sessions followed by 5-minute breaks. This allows for studying with as much or as little time that you can allow. I’ve tried this technique, and personally, it seems to help postpone study-session burnout.

taryn

Sophomore at JCIB:)

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