5 actionable things you can do to be more productive.

It’s said so often, but every now and then it really hits me just how incredibly unprecedented this whole year has really been for our generation. On top of a global pandemic, we are seeing every day the consequences of living in a world that does not and will not change to protect all its citizens. It’s enough to drive anyone into a hole. So how are you meant to keep going when your commitments and responsibilities require you to. My experience of working and being a student during Covid-19 is hardly unique. To sum it up in just a few words: It was HARD. Impossibly so. And I genuinely struggled immensely. But as time went on, I worked hard to make sure that I wasn’t pushed further and further into a hole of hopelessness and demotivation. But again, I don’t think I really need to repeat it but I will, it was hard.

There is such an awareness that being a student requires an immense amount of work. And yet, the further you go in academia and the longer you are in it, the more people start to make assumptions, asking questions with heavily suggested judgement: ‘So, you’re STILL in school?’ At a time when students are being asked to completely re-haul their routines and work habits, it is incredibly de-motivating to hear people underestimate how much work students do.

While I can’t stop people from underestimating students, I can give advice on how to approach the new year of digital and remote schooling. As a PhD candidate, I continued my research while working remotely all throughout the summer and have come up with a series of tips and tricks that made digital and remote schooling easier.

Don’t try to stick to regular office hours. Now this might sound counterproductive but hear me out! The easiest way to keep yourself sane is to set up timings that you can take off. One of the hardest things about being a student is the feeling of never being able to stop being a student. Trying to assign times like 9am to 5pm is arbitrary and does not take into account everyone’s productive times. Especially if you have pets, kids, elderly relatives that need your attention. So, instead, Laura Vanderkam, author of The New Corner Office which explores working remotely, suggests thinking of work in terms of tasks, rather than hours. Set up your agenda of things you need to get done and rather of thinking about the hours, just focus on crossing things off a list. If you meet your goals earlier than anticipated, great! Take the rest of the day off! If you’re falling behind, that’s okay, work a little more, content with the knowledge that you won’t be working this late every day.
Invest in an optimised workspace. We’ve all heard it before, spending too much time in front of your computer is bad for your eyes, your head, blah blah blah. Now I’m not at all saying that this is not true, nor is it bad advice to limit the time in front of a screen. However, it is a little unrealistic. Especially now that so many of us are working or studying from home. So here is the next best option. Invest in the right furniture and amenities. Getting a second and larger screen will ease the tension in your eyes from staring at a smaller screen. Buying a desk that is not your kitchen desk will establish a zone of productivity that will not be overrun by coffee or jams stains (unless you’re a coffee addict like me and you have coffee stains all over your workspace anyways). Additionally, creating an appropriate workspace is not only beneficial to your productivity but helps to save your spine and eyesight!
Avoid crossing personal and work lines. This ties into the above. Create a space that minimises distractions and encourages you to work. Working from your bed may be incredibly comfortable but your mind and body have been trained to attribute that space to relax, so one of two things will happen. One, you find you are constantly distracted or nodding off from the tedious paper in front of you, or, two, you bring stress into your relaxation space and find it difficult to sleep because your mind is mixing up signals, resulting in worse sleep which consequently affects your productivity.
Determine your perfect workday. Set out what your perfect day would look like and then tone it down a little to be realistic. With the lack of schedule or places to be, aside from that zoom call that you’re going to take from your bed in your PJs, finding some structure in your day-to-day can be a struggle. You run the risk of aimlessly going about your day, more concerned with how to make it a productive day, multitasking away than it is a productive day. Author Cal Newport, who wrote Deep Work, argues that multitasking is not productivity at all. Rather, in switching from task to task we are only half focusing on either option and not giving it our full attention which can affect our work performance. Bottom line, even if you’re not a planner, having a general idea of what the day is going to look like will give you helpful direction so you’re not trying to do too many things at once.
Develop a good Sunday routine. do a mental inventory. Original a method designed by the creator of the bullet journal system, Ryder Carroll talks about how decision fatigue is a real thing and can cause your focus to decrease and stress increase. A mental inventory is a process of taking every little thing that is in your head that you are holding on to and dumping it onto a piece of paper. Getting it out of your mind helps to clear space for you to think more clearly and be more focused. In Getting Things Done, David Allen states that while our brains are great at thinking things, it is terrible at remembering things. By trying so hard to remember things, we inadvertently stop concentrating on the things we are trying to get done. Use the Get Things Done method:
1. Put your thoughts down either on paper or digitally
2. Clarify each item and what you can do about it.
3. Organise them into a structured list and reflect on the priorities and what is important to you.

There you have a list all ready to go for the next week so you have minimal remembering to do. Having a Sunday routine gets it all out of your head for the week ahead so that you can dedicate all your brain space to the work at hand.

Hope these tips have helped set you up for being a productive student during these incredibly bizarre times! Good luck!

~S~

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