How Not to Procrastinate While Learning Virtually: 7 Tips
COVID-19 Series The Princeton Review
Hi, everyone.
I’m Rob Franek, Editor-in-Chief at The Princeton Review.
Would you rather spend 3 hours scrolling through social media, or hanging out with your best
friends doing something you love?
The answer seems obvious, right?
Hold that thought because we’re going to come back to it.
If you’re learning virtually this fall, you may have classes that are pre-recorded—that
you can watch at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, or 10 p.m. on Wednesday—and no one would be the
wiser.
Overall, you’re likely to have roughly the same quantity of stuff to do—but fewer constraints
about when you do it.
No bells between classes or intensive team workout schedules—just the live classes
you have to attend, plus your to-do list, plus time.
If you have a tendency to procrastinate, that extra flexibility in your schedule may present
extra challenges.
When you procrastinate, you put off for the future something that you should probably
be working on now.
The word itself comes from pro: meaning forward or for, and cras, meaning tomorrow.
When you put too many things off until tomorrow, you can create a situation in which you’re
both stressed and crunched for time.
And here’s the worst thing about procrastination, in my humble opinion: You deprive yourself
of the opportunity to have actual, fun, free time.
Here’s what I mean: If you can be disciplined about your schedule and finish your work by
2 p.m. on Thursday, then you give yourself the entire rest of the day to hang out with
your best friends, doing something you love—as we talked about at the beginning of this video.
The thing that procrastination does is it robs you of your free time.
When you procrastinate, you always have something lingering on your to-do list.
You stretch out the period of time during which you’re working—or feel like you’re
working—and you compress the fun part: the part where you’re done, and free.
So let’s talk about how you can avoid procrastinating and get more free time.
Tip #1: Adjust your mindset.
Think of procrastinating as something that you actively do.
Because it is.
And then once you’ve changed the way you think about it, change what you do about it:
Choose to actively do something else.
Tip #2: Structure your schedule.
With virtual school, you’re likely to have a lot more flexibility for when you do things.
That’s great!
You get to create a structure that works for you.
Check out our 9 back-to-school tips video for more tips on how to do that.
The point is: Don’t let your schedule happen to you—be an active participant in creating
it.
Tip #3: When you’re in class, whether it’s live or prerecorded, make sure that you get
engaged.
For live classes, make sure you’re taking notes and participating by raising your hand
and asking questions.
For pre-recorded classes, take notes.
Copious notes.
Clear notes that you can refer back to.
Reach out to the teacher if you have questions.
In fact, do that anyway by attending virtual office hours if your teacher offers them.
Form an online study group with your classmates.
Get your head in the game, even and especially when “the game” is in two dimensions on
your screen.
Tip #4: Make it harder to procrastinate.
Part of the problem with procrastinating is that it’s so easy to do!
One way to be more deliberate about how you spend your time is to use a time-management
app when you need to study.
Some will shut down your access to the internet for a period of time so you can focus.
Others are more like timers that you set to work hard for, say, 20 minutes, then take
a five-minute break, and repeat as needed.
You don’t even need apps for this if you can, say, turn off your own internet access
or set a timer.
But there are lots of apps, and many are free.
So figure out what works best for you, and then do that.
Tip #5: Do not fall into the trap of productive procrastination.
You know—when you are doing something laudable and productive—just not the thing you’re
supposed to be doing.
If you have a paper to write, now’s not the time to clean your room!
Tip #6: Try to be deliberate about how you spend your time.
One maxim I’ve found useful is: Don’t stay up late doing something you wouldn’t
get up early to do.
Unless, of course, the thing you are doing is something you actively want to do.
And that leads me to our final tip for you here today.
Tip #7: Be kind to yourself.
The point of all these tips is to help you think about being deliberate in how you spend
your time.
This is not to say that every waking moment needs to be spent in service of some larger
goal—that actually sounds kind of miserable.
But if you can achieve a greater ratio of productivity to procrastination, then you
can use your free time to do the things you enjoy most.
And at this very challenging moment, having more time for things you love is very much
a win.
A silver lining to virtual school is that you may even have a bit more free time than
usual—if you plan for it.
Thanks so much for watching, my friends.
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info, and more.
See you here next time.