productivity
pro·duc·tiv·i·ty / noun
- The quality or state or being productive
- Having the quality or power of producing, especially in abundance
How does one achieve productivity? What does it mean to be productive as a student?
After being in quarantine due to COVID-19 for three days now, I contemplate this abstraction. How can we be productive in the midst of a pandemic quarantine? Productivity can mean a variety of things to students. It can mean finishing work before or on time, balancing work and school, or learning something new.
Procrastination
As an expert student, I am very well-versed in procrastination. When I think of productivity, I usually ask myself, “how do I beat procrastination?” I believe the key to beating procrastination and achieving productivity lies in mindfulness and control of emotion. Not time-management. I’ll say it again, not time-management. Time-Management is more of a by product of productivity.
The root of this productivity (and procrastination) is mindfulness, being in control and aware of the moments and what is happening around you. Why?
Mindlessness, the lack of awareness, can control you, without you even noticing. Do you sometimes find yourself driving and suddenly you’re already at your location? Or, opening a bag of chips and now you’ve suddenly eaten all of the chips? This happens too when attempting to tackle homework or studying. I find myself robotizing note-taking and not paying attention to what I’ve written or read. This can slowly eat away at your time and cause you to feel unmotivated to continue. The urge to procrastinate kicks in.
The key to productivity is mindfulness and control of emotion.
How do achieve productivity?
1. Practice mindfulness.
Be in tune with your surroundings and pay attention to how you’re feeling and what is taking up your time. There are recent studies to suggest that your current emotions affect the rate at which you complete a project or task. Happier people tend to get more work done than when under pressure or are angry.
2. Identify your emotions.
If you aren’t able to talk about your emotions clearly, you may not be able to think about how you feel clearly. Expand your emotional vocabulary in order to attain emotional awareness. Once you are able to have emotional clarity, you can identify your emotions and address them.
3. Focus on the most important tasks first.
Focus on checking off your important tasks first. Sometimes, we procrastinate by doing less important things, like completing a homework assignment due next week instead of studying for an exam that’s tomorrow. Be efficient and effective. Laura Earnest of Whole Life Productivity says, “Efficient is doing things right and effective is doing the right things. So the most productive people work on the high value tasks, making sure that how they are doing those tasks is the best way.“
4. Make a distraction list to stay on task.
Oftentimes, you can find yourself suddenly remembering to take the trash out or a new Instagram caption idea, which are both tasks that have value and importance.
They just aren’t important right now.
So, write them down in a “distraction list” and get back to doing your task. Whenever you get to a stopping point or are taking a break, you can do these smaller tasks or add them to a bigger to-do list.
5. Take breaks.
There are extensive studies and research to show that taking breaks is very effective. The basis of the Pomodoro Technique is taking a 5-minute break for every 25-minutes of work.
It is important to distinguish taking breaks from distractions. Be proactive and mindful during the break. If the break time is not scheduled, then it is possible that the break is actually a distraction.
As I write this entry, I found a great blog about emotional fitness and productivity by a therapist. The fact is, procrastination is completely normal and the human response to procrastination is His viewpoint and explanation of productivity is exceptional and professional. As an expert student, I saved that blog post for future reference.
Study Tea 