Three tips to manage your studies effectively

Written by: Sadhana Pandu Regawa

It’s 3am and you’re stuck staring at your essay, with its one measly paragraph, and no brain power left to think of academically challenging arguments.

You decide to call it a day, but once the sun rises, you’ve overslept and find yourself in the very same situation from the night before, now with added anxiety as the deadline looms over. 

It happens, and that’s okay. That’s a part of student life, so don’t feel like you’re alone here. I am a seasoned procrastinator too, although, I have become a ‘better’ procrastinator over my university years, thanks to these three tips that I’ve applied.

Define the outcome and the next step

Students may often think of a problem, it’s usually thoughts like “I haven’t done my essay yet, and it’s due soon”, which creates anxiety. This thinking is misguided; the secret is thinking about the problem’s outcome and next step.

 The outcome is simply what it takes to label a problem as ‘done.’ In this context, it could be ‘submit my essay before the deadline.’ This establishes a clear finish line – pushing that ‘submit’ button. Then, ask yourself, if you had nothing else to do but to get this thing done, what is the next action? This outlines your next step, like “gather five articles to use” or “write a first draft for the introduction”. 

Of course, every problem is different, and applying this methodology can be tedious and vague. The problem is still there, but hopefully if done correctly, you’ll have crucially found a clearer and less anxiety-inducing path to victory, by simply clarifying two things: the outcome and your next step.

Get a productivity management system like Notion

Notion is an application where you can develop your own personal workspace, with functions to create your own to-do lists, study notes, and scheduling. You can even get the premium version of it using your student email, so don’t miss out on this! 

Either way, with any management tool you have – post-its, a physical journal, or Notion – its effectiveness comes in how you use it. This requires a fine-tuning and personalisation of it that suits your liking. Some people prefer to-do lists, others prefer bulleted points, and so on.

You should aim to customise your management system in a way that makes solving problems easier, hence why I recommended Notion, as it’s easily accessible, digital, and customisable. 

Personally, I use Notion as a way to store all of my “open loops” – problems in my head that are left unclarified (think of an open electrical circuit). Then, with each ‘“open loop’”, I clarify the outcome and next step, so I have a big picture on things that needs to be done soon, others which I can defer, and which hurdles are the hardest. In the end, a productivity management system should help you to own your problems, not the other way around.

Make it difficult to procrastinate

So, we’re making progress. We’ve clarified the outcomes and next steps of our ‘open loops’ and organised it all neatly in our personal management system to see the bigger picture. You open your laptop, ready to start that ‘next step’ you’ve clarified, until an Instagram notification distracts you and suddenly three hours have passed! 

Yes, I understand that all too well. I underestimated just how difficult it was to start, and that led to procrastination again. Well, if it’s difficult to start, and easy to procrastinate, then how about we make procrastinating more difficult than starting? 

This is, once again, highly personalised, so you should do whatever works for you. For me, I’ve modified some features on my laptop and phone (thank you, YouTube gurus!) to make this happen.

For example, I installed a plugin in Chrome that, whenever I access YouTube or Instagram, would instead forward me to a picture of a disappointed panda.

Friends are a great way to enforce this too, through holding each other accountable. I’ve decided with my friend that we would give each other 5p for every minute spent on social media, that way if one person slacks and the other achieves, the procrastinator must compensate, creating an incentive for both people to work.

The strategies I’ve mentioned here have been adapted from James Clear’s ‘Atomic Habits’ and David Allen’s ‘Getting Things Done,’ both incredibly useful books for anyone looking for better organisation in their life. Happy studying!