Time Management

Your Perfectionism is Just Fancy Procrastination

Due to the nature of this blog, I tend to read many self-help books, study guides, productivity blogs, and so on. While I may not agree with everything out there, I regularly find writing that I totally agree with; the advice is sound.

But I’m reading up for research purposes and to find quality links and pearls of wisdom that I hadn’t thought about myself. Your reasons for reading study tips and advice should be rather different to this.

Are you happy with your overall techniques? Do you mainly read advice and find yourself in agreement with it, or does it help you contemplate change? Do you spend too much time reading up on self-help, rather than helping yourself?

I recently had a discussion with a friend about the meaning of ‘doing the right thing’. While it was based on personal choices, rather than working techniques, the conclusion can work on either level. We concluded that our personal positions are often based on our individual perceptions of what is right and wrong. But in the general, overall sense, nothing is as certain as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Because this leaves room for doubt in our minds, we end up fuelling a relentless pursuit of perfection.

photo by yosmer

Doughnuts…so right or so wrong?

So today, I want to give you one piece of advice:

When you’re relatively in touch with your academic work and have a keen grasp on what matters and what suits you…STOP looking for more advice and START working.

You may read a lot of tips that tell you to “Just do it”, because starting is often the best way to find a voice and explore what’s on your mind. But this isn’t the same thing.

The difference is that you have been looking to further yourself and, in turn, have positively developed. The likelihood is that you already have started “just doing it”, but you can probably do it a lot faster now if you focused on that task alone.

With a quality set of techniques in the bag, now is the time to crack on. If you insist upon perfection, you will end up wasting more time that the period before you had a focused set of study techniques.

Some near perfect outcomes can only occur through imperfection. The reason being: there is no such thing as perfect.

The story of a professor who has just solved a 140-year-old mathematical puzzle has nothing to do with a ‘perfect’ working environment. He was simply sitting in a lecture, letting his mind wander as he grew bored. You can’t ask for something quite so perfect through such unlikely circumstances.

You have it in you to create your own eureka moments. So if you’re pretty happy with the way you get on with your academic work, let the creative and practical juices flow and let it take you through glorious (im)perfection.

Just 10 minutes a day can make all the difference

We all have the same 24 hours in each day. It’s up to us to make good use of the time.

When you add up all the five or ten minute breaks we end up having each day, it’s a large block of time. Therefore, no matter how busy a person is, a lot of free time can be amalgamated.

What if you were to give just 10 minutes of each day to something new?

wall_clock (photo by lusi)

It doesn’t matter when you do it. The 10 minutes can be first thing in the morning one day and in the middle of the afternoon on another.

And it doesn’t even matter what. Anything that’s new to you won’t be quite so new if you learn about it for just 10 minutes a day for a couple of weeks.

Cutting up your time into very small pieces can open up your eyes to how much you can do when you put your mind to it. That’s 144 sessions of 10 minutes in every day. Sure, we have lectures and seminars and evenings out and clubs to go to, and time to eat and sleep, yadda yadda yadda, but there’s bound to be at least a few spare 10 minute sessions there for the taking.

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10 Things You Can Do With 10 Minutes

Learn 5 new words – great for when you’re trying to speak a new language…
Say ‘Thank you’ – A brief note doesn’t take long to write, but can spread happiness that lasts a long time.
Exercise – If you don’t spend any time keeping fit, just 10 minutes can give you that extra boost.
Sleep – A short powernap can bring long-lasting benefits throughout the remainder of your day.
Start a project you’ve been putting off – It’s just for 10 minutes, but at least you’ll have started. You may even decide to continue. Sometimes the hardest part is starting.
Write a list – Maybe you’re already adept at firing off lists every day. If not, use a 10 minute chunk to start the great habit.
Take a short walk – This isn’t a strenuous activity, just a stroll to clear your mind, get some fresh air, and look around you.
Start writing – Doesn’t matter what it’s about. Just see where it takes you for 10 minutes. It could amaze you.
Ask yourself “What do I really want?” – Do you ever take the time to seriously consider this question? Now’s the time.
Watch the clock – Prove the point, look at the clock for 10 whole minutes. Boring, isn’t it? Just think how much you could have achieved in that short – but very long – period of time.

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It may also be useful to break down your entire day into 10 minute chunks, so you don’t accidentally waste away half an hour just because it’s “only half an hour”.

And you needn’t change your plans in the first instance. Maybe you like to spend an hour and a half watching the TV and chatting with your housemates. If you note this down each day as 9 complete 10 minute blocks, you’ll find it easier to visualise and more convenient to limit yourself to just 70 or 80 minutes TV watching a day whenever it’s necessary.

After a short while, it will be apparent just how much time you have spent on each activity. [e.g. Six 10-minute blocks at a lecture, Two 10-minute blocks walking into town, Six 10-minute blocks shopping & eating, Two 10-minute blocks walking back home, Eighteen 10-minute blocks on the Internet doing – ahem! – research.) With the hard evidence, you can see exactly where your time is disappearing and you’ll have the ability to make changes to suit your wants and needs.

On top of all this, you’re more likely to take your timetable seriously. Let’s admit it, we all enjoy seeing half a day of absolute freedom in our schedule, but with so many 10-minute blocks staring you in the face, they’re just asking to be filled up with a bit more than “Sit around chatting with mates”. Can you imagine doing just that for 24 entire 10-minute chunks…?

You know it makes sense!

Kick Down a False Sense of Security

Your first year of university is very different to your following years.

In most instances, first year modules don’t account for much – if any – of your degree award. So long as you pass everything, you get through.

From the second year onwards, I heard a lot of people saying that they were going to need to take a proper reign of their work from now on, as the marks ‘mean something now’.

This is a shallow view, but it’s not really the student’s fault in seeing things this way. If all you need to do is pass something, where’s the incentive to try harder? It sounds like a good get-out, it sounds unimportant, and the first year of university is clearly about experiencing so much that it sounds great to ignore the work aspect as much as possible.

But rather than setting you up perfectly for the rest of your years at uni, the false sense of security can, in many cases, cause problems further down the line.

On this blog, I’ve always been an advocate of making the most of your time and looking at the bigger picture. In this respect, it’s a false economy to treat your study less seriously in your Fresher year than in your following years.

Even if you think it’s going to be easy to put more effort in from Year 2, the reality will soon bite you on the bum. It’s likely you’ll anticipate a sudden increase in workload, but you’ll be shocked at how much more reading you’ll have. And essays. And practical work. And presentations.

I treated my first year as an experiment. For instance, it was great to write essays quickly, ask tutors if I was working along the right lines, and amend the essays accordingly. It gave me a taste of what an academic essay needed to look like. The extra input did take up a bit more time to go over, but not much. It was more than worth it in rewards.

Regardless, because I made sure to get up around 6-7am most days, I got most work out of the way before anyone else was up. It looked like I was doing less work than everyone else!

So treat the year as a time to experiment and understand how to get the good grades next year. See where it takes you and don’t be afraid to occasionally go out on a limb. If you’re not being seriously marked, it’s much better to treat the work with a sense of fun, rather than not bother with it at all.

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A false sense of security can also lead to wasted time. If there are so many weeks before an essay is due in, it’s easy to sit back and chill. But with the prospect of an essay on your mind over those weeks, all enthusiasm and drive can fall away. Procrastination will only end up giving you more tasks to think about, so you’ll be less inclined to push yourself and do much with your time at all.

So in my first year, I learned to use hidden time as carefully as possible. For instance, my timetable generally consisted of an hour lecture, followed by an hour break, followed by an accompanying seminar.

The hour-long break was spent by many people doing one of three things:

Sitting in the cafe, bar, or student union, having a laugh and a quick drink;
Doing the work that was scheduled to be done in time for the seminar (leaving no time to address problems, confusion, quality, etc.);
Using the computers on campus to surf the net until the hour had passed by.

My thought was to spend time on other study work, even if it was just to read quietly. Whatever study I was considering, it was another hour of work that nobody even noticed me working in.

No wonder people thought I did no work. But it was just an illusion.

It might sound like I just enjoy the studious side of university life. But in utilising my time well, I had more time to be social and enjoy myself too.

You have the same 24 hours that everyone else has each day.

So if I’m asked how I was able to manage so much with my time at uni, I answer, “How could I not have managed it?”

The truth is, I was often disappointed with myself that I didn’t achieve even more with my time. That false sense of security often bit me on the bum too!

But remember, we’re all able to improve exponentially. Don’t let anyone persuade you otherwise.

Making revision work: When less can be more

In my school years, I didn’t realise that you don’t need to do more and more revision in order to fare better in exams. In fact, doing too much revision can lead to negative effects.

Over the years, I’ve learned how to make the most of my revision time so that a little time can go a long way. Here are some of the things I found that helped:

Constant revision = bad news

A good tip to start with. There are some people who don’t do much revision at all. There are others who revise instead of sleeping and who revise while they’re already revising(!). There are also a large number of people in between. What do you consider yourself to be?

We know it’s no good ignoring your revision. But it’s just as dangerous to revise too much. It can lead to stress and unhappiness; exactly the opposite of what you want to achieve.

It’s difficult to accept that less can be more when you have upcoming exams, but if your attitude is screwed up and you’re getting dizzy with work, no amount of revision is going to be particularly effective, is it?

Work with a timed goal in mind. Set a time limit that you’ll work to and stick to it. Once the time is up, stop working and find something else to do.

While there is no optimum amount of revision time, it’s bound to start tiring you greatly after 4 or 5 hours in a day. I’ve seen some peeps getting restless after a few hours, but who were determined to continue doing another couple of hours of fruitless revision.

What’s the point? After a couple of hours of in-depth work, it’s no surprise your mind starts wandering. Let it wander, do something else, and come back to the revision when you’re fully refreshed. Listen to your mind and body and they will love you for it.

Make the most of external factors

I’ve always been a true believer of working in many different places and under different circumstances in order to get the most out of my mind. Not only can it open up different channels for the brain to work its magic, but it can also act as a memory jogger when you’re trying to recall information.

It’s great to associate different elements of your revision with different study areas. Your desk, your bed, the kitchen, the bathroom, outside, in the library, in the laundrette, on a wall, anywhere you like!

And how about focusing on who you’re with too? Maybe even go as far as using some of your social conversations at the time to jog you into remembering the work you were meant to be doing at the time… 😉

Like some memory masters, they use techniques when remembering something like a random deck of cards, by picturing a large room in their house and associating each card with an object in the room, or in a particular part of that room.

That’s why associating locations, faces, conversations, and so on, with your study can all help trigger memories for you.

Embrace the wonders of time

For some students, revision is a reluctant last resort choice, completed only when spare time is available. With no defined structure, you may be doing yourself an injustice.

Let’s say the only free time you seem to use is around mid-afternoon.

Who’s to say that your mind and body hate mid-afternoon more than any other part of the day? If it’s the only time you give yourself to revise, you’re fighting a losing battle from the outset. No wonder you’re so reluctant to revise.

Time is more important than you might think. One person’s dream of a 6am start is another person’s worst nightmare. To make sure you’re working at your most productive times, try getting 20-30 minutes of revision done at different points in the day and see where it takes you. While it’s unfortunate if you find your best time to be the evening when you’d usually go out, it’s a sacrifice worth making for a few days. A few days will not spoil three or four years of good fun, will it…?

I must admit that I’ve never had a natural ‘best’ time of the day, but many others swear by a few hours in which they’re most productive. For some, it’s very early in the morning. For others, it’s when most people are tucked up in bed. Even if you discover, like me, that you have no reliable pattern for time, at least you’ll have tried.

Find motivational anchors

Do you break out in a nervous sweat when it’s time to knuckle down? Do you look around and suddenly find lots of terribly important stuff that must be sorted before you could possible do any revision? Are your friends too much of a draw for you to bear to be without them for a couple of hours while you put in some quality reading?

If any of these ring true, you need to find some motivational anchors to keep you at the books.

Your motivation can come from:

Your head
Your heart

If your head motivates you more, tell yourself why the work is so important for your future. Note down the factors that make this the most sensible thing to be doing right now. Be strong in your belief that the more effort you put in now, the easier you’ll find the work and the quicker it will be finished.

If you’re happier to let your heart decide what motivates you, consider just how good it will be to have taken in the necessary information and what a boost it will be for you. Then think how bad things could be if you didn’t get the work done. Ask yourself if putting off your revision for some supposed short term gain is actually worthwhile in the long term.

You may feel you have more choice and flexibility, but imagine what it would be like in the world of employment…If your boss told you to do something, it would be unusual for you to do anything other than get on with the work. And if you want to be your own boss in the future, it’s even more reason to start getting the work done!

Enjoy yourself

A good tip to end with. While those around you are unlikely to be whooping (or w00ting) with joy at the prospect of sitting down and taking in mounds of information for impending exams, that doesn’t make it the end of the world either.

As a student, it’s just part of life. The sooner you come to accept that, the more time you can spend getting on with it as positively as possible. Yes, it’s a pain, but we all need to revise. Just get the work out of the way and tick the work off your list with pride when you’re done.

Your life as a whole is far more important than your work in isolation. The more you treat your study as part of that bigger picture, the more likely you are to deal with the work without worrying about it. As soon as it takes over your life, you’ll start losing out.

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