As I am approaching the end of the semester I have a lot of things that are going on in my life. There are many things that college students need to focus on around this time of the year such as, finals, projects, classes, interviewing for jobs and internships for the summer, and a whole lot more. It’s super easy for us to get distracted because the last thing we want to do is sit and study for hours and hours. However, we all know that we need to do that in order to pass our classes and go into the next chapter in our life.
Not only do we get distracted in school, but sometimes things can overtake our mind, which makes it hard to focus on other things in our life. We can’t ever focus on other things in our life, things like work, sports, activities, and family. I know I have been in that spot where I got super distracted by one thing that I couldn’t sit there and focus on finishing a 2 page paper that was due the following day. I remember that it probably took me like 3-4 hours to write it because I had so many other things on my mind. Some things that distracted me from not getting my work done; were doing work around my friends, constantly checking my phone, and stopping my task to work on other things.
Doing Work With Your Friends
People in college enjoy doing work with their friends and studying for tests which is fine because sometimes it allows you to do better in your classes. However, there are times when your friends can be a real distraction to you when you are trying to finish tasks that have deadlines. I used to do work with my friends all the time but would be getting my assignments done in double the amount of time that it would actually take. Letting them know that you need to finish specific things before you hangout with them helps you get work done in time, gets more amount of work done, and lets you have valuable time just for your friends.
Constantly Checking Your Phone
I’m pretty sure we all have had something that we needed to work on but we couldn’t stay off of our phones because we kept answering back texts or checked social media. There were times that I would check my phone every 5 minutes just because it was always near me when I was doing work. I soon realized that it wasn’t helping my productivity so I set my phone aside to finish a task at a time and then checked it when I was done.
Jumping From Task To Task
Who here has been working on one thing and then thought about something else and started working on that instead? I bet we all have because that is a common thing that distracts us from finishing a task. We can’t ever stop thoughts from flowing in our brain but when we do think of something while we are in the middle of a task it’s important to write it down and do it later. Keep your notebook or planner next to you so if you think of something you need to do, you can write it down to do it later instead of taking time to do it that second.
These strategies have strongly helped me in becoming more efficient in getting my work done in a decent amount of time and focusing on only that instead of the distractions. Therefore, try using these tips next time you find yourself being distracted when finishing a task.
Sabah Ali
#theclockisticking
