Your big day has almost come! It won’t be long until college move-in day. But, more than in high school, you’ve got to learn to be focused and study independently.
Now, you’ve got to get used to living on your own. You need to discover what it takes to be an independent person. Isn’t that great?
In college, though, everybody seems to be more career-conscious, and everybody seems to want to make the best of the situation. But there’s obstacles everywhere when it comes to studying.
Procrastination can be a common issue when it comes to studying. You can easily list 100 things you’d rather do than studying, right?
Writing out this list of 100 things instead of studying would be a fine example of procrastination.
However, let’s identify some of the causes of procrastination as well as some solutions to learn how to overcome it.
Causes of procrastination
Stress is a common one, especially in the lead up to exams. You’ll feel pressure due to the amount of material you feel you need to cover and the amount of time you have.
Motivation is another key cause. You may feel burned out or fed up from looking at the same material for an extended period of time or doing the same type of exam questions over and over.
Lack of discipline where you’ve avoided study in the past, or more particularly, you’ve avoided certain topics because you don’t like them or find them interesting.
This factor ties in with a lack of motivation and can contribute immensely to stress and other negative feelings that will affect your success in college.
Tiredness or fatigue can also lead to procrastination as you struggle to find the energy to focus on the work in front of you.
In college, you’re on your own. Your parents are no longer there to keep you on the right track and the teachers will not be looking over your shoulders as they did in high school. Self-discipline is required!
Solutions
Keep in mind that there’s so much difference between high school and college. You need to become a disciplined independent student!
It’s easy to say to people who procrastinate that they should just do it and get stuck in, but this doesn’t help!
One of the best techniques for overcoming procrastination is to set an achievable goal, such as completing a question on a past exam paper or revising a particular topic in a short period.
This gives you a definitive object and a time frame, by the end of which you should have something to show for it. Much depends on whether you’re a dependent or an independent student.
For example, by saying you’ll complete an exam question in 25 minutes, you know you only need to concentrate for a manageable amount of time and by the end, you’ll have something tangible to show for it (an answered question).
This should give you the focus you need to do additional work, and the sense of achievement will alleviate your stress levels somewhat, especially if you’re happy with the work you’ve just completed.
By taking this approach several times, as well as improving your time management skills, you’re also introducing some discipline into your study routine. As a college freshman, the challenges are plentiful and you’ve got to learn how to deal with them.
Stress and lack of focus
For handling stress and lack of focus, you should try to study when you’re well-rested. Tiredness affects the ability to concentrate, meaning procrastination is even more likely.
Too many stimulants such as caffeine can also make it difficult to concentrate, so it’s a good idea to avoid too much coffee or coffee late at night.
Another approach to overcoming procrastination is to identify a task you need to do and reward yourself once it’s been completed.
Another reward would be a scholarship, wouldn’t it? The reward doesn’t need to be something extravagant, just something to acknowledge you’ve achieved something with your study.
List of tasks
The final tip is to draw up a list of tasks you want to complete in your study session. This should help focus your mind on what needs to be done.
You need to ensure the list is not too long as this may be demotivating, but should be large enough to challenge but be achievable.
As you complete each item on your list, cross it off and as you see yourself making progress you should feel a sense of achievement.
To conclude, while procrastination may threaten to derail your study session, there are several things you can do to make sure the time spent at your desk studying yields results. Learn also if perhaps the Pomodoro Study Technique could be right for you.
Learning how to break down a big piece of work into many smaller tasks makes it easier to focus and complete. While procrastination can be an issue, overcoming procrastination is definitely possible.
Increase your concentration
As the exams approach and pressure builds, it’s easy to get distracted and lose focus when what you really want to do is increase concentration!
Especially for Freshmen, this is key as they must learn how to study independently. Above you can read how to overcome procrastination but once you’ve settled into a study session how to maintain concentration?
One of the biggest distractions is the internet. A quick bit of research for your study can lead you into the temptation of Facebook or Twitter. Before you know it your afternoon as slipped by and your study plan is in tatters.
StayFocusd is a handy tool to increase concentration and productivity available free in the Chrome web store as a free add-in for the Chrome browser.
It allows you to restrict your browsing completely (the Nuclear option!), or to block the main offenders while letting you browse study-related sites – you get pick what gets blocked!
The Chrome web store has plenty of information and instructions on how to set it up and configure to help you get the most out of it.
You have the option to block sites for either a specific time period such as an hour or to set it up to block it between certain times which is handy if you’re planning to study all morning for example. Innovative educators will help you get it all organized in an orderly way.
While this tool will help cut down on distractions and increase concentration, it won’t do the study for you, unfortunately! It’s definitely worth trying out – if it helps increase concentration and focus for even a short period, it has to beneficial.
It’s a free add-in for your Chrome browser so there’s no cost to you either, what’s not to like about it!
Once you’re finished all your exams you can uninstall Stayfocusd quite easily, but if you think it’ll come in useful for your next set of exams you can always leave it installed as it runs in the background with no issues.