So, the finals week is coming, and you have a semester’s worth of studying to do if you want to be even remotely ready for it. It seems to be a good time to sit down and do some revising finally, doesn’t it? However, as all procrastinators know, you suddenly start finding dozens of pastimes that appear to be so much more fascinating and urgent. In this article, we will cover some of the typical things that tend to eat up our time when we have to use every minute with maximum efficiency. This way the next time your mind starts playing tricks with you, you will be more likely to spot it and take measures.
1. Randomly surfing the Internet
Perhaps you’ve opened your laptop to find something related to your studies, like where you can get cheap dissertation writing. However, ten minutes later you inexplicably find yourself randomly drifting from a website to a website on topics that have absolutely nothing to do with your studies and have no idea how you’ve ended up there. Any attempt to get back on track results in getting into the same situation again and again.
Unfortunately, there is almost nothing to do about it. If you know what websites you tend to drift off to you can block the usual suspects using LeechBlock, Focus or another similar tool, but if studying just bores you so much you would rather read about something completely unrelated on Wikipedia, there is nothing to do about it but to bite the bullet and force yourself to study. If you can avoid using a computer with the Internet connection to revise for your finals, try doing it, it may help.
2. Relocating
A change of place can do a lot to help you study, sometimes. Perhaps you are too tired to go on revising in your dorm and have to go somewhere else to freshen things up a bit? In some cases, relocating to a library or even to a café can help you improve your concentration and increase the efficiency of your studies, but not when going to another place turns into a pretext to take a break. If soon after you’ve changed the scenery, you find yourself craving for another relocation, it is most likely the sign that it isn’t going to help. Stick to where you are right now and try to force yourself to get deeper into your reading and, hopefully, you will be able to overcome it.
3. Doing random household chores
One of the interesting aspects of studying for your finals is that it somehow makes even the activities you usually do anything to avoid infinitely fascinating. Doing your laundry, mopping the floors, buying groceries, cleaning the bathtub – anything but studying. However, this is currently exactly not the time to do all this. When you find yourself inexplicably drawn to a vacuum cleaner or something along the same lines, remind yourself that right now is the best time to put this stuff off. Don’t fool yourself saying that you are doing something useful – you don’t.
4.Cooking
The same goes for cooking. It is always better to eat the food that you’ve cooked yourself than living on snacks and pizzas, but right now is not the time to start making forays into a healthy lifestyle. If you’ve been subsisting on unhealthy foods for so long, a few more days won’t kill you. Plus, staying away from the kitchen will probably give you a few extra hours to put into studying.
5. Organizing
Sure, having all your study materials (and the rest of your stuff) neatly organized and in the right places makes it easier to find things and helps you remember about the things you would otherwise forget. However, if you went through the entire semester without sorting through all this stuff and putting every file into its proper folder, then right now isn’t the best time to do so. It could have helped you if you did it beforehand, but right now you will be much better off if you simply get down to study, no matter how disgustingly disorganized your desktop is. The same goes for putting anything else in order, from your dorm room to your music collection.
6. Napping
Getting a little bit of sleep in the middle of the day can recharge your brain and make you more efficient for a while – but you should always ask yourself if you really need it. Perhaps it is just a pretext, and you are not actually all that tired? Maybe you can function just as well without sleeping and only want to lie down because you hate the prospect of studying for a single minute more?
We have all been there – not having enough time to prepare for finals has some very bizarre effects on one’s behavior, from deciding to do a spring cleaning to reorganizing your movie collection. However, if you are conscious of your behavior and where it comes from, you have much better chances of avoiding it. When you try to see your actions from the outside, dispassionately and evaluate how well it goes hand in hand with achieving your goals, you get a chance of overriding these irrational behaviors and actually forcing yourself to do what you have to do.