Stress gets a bad reputation. We’re always looking to remove it from our lives through workouts, tea, naps—pick your poison. But actually, some stress pushes us to complete work efficiently and well. Many students can’t get motivated to start a paper or project until they feel the stress of a deadline (guilty!). Sometimes though, the stress becomes overwhelming and the work suffers; in other words, procrastination.
I’ve discovered some tips to help me de-stress, use procrastination to my benefit, and be happy with my finished work. Some common tips to de-stress include doing yoga, working out, drinking tea and starting projects earlier. But I’ve found that these suggestions don’t work for me, or even if some do, I can never stick to them. Instead, I’ve found ways to help me start that daunting paper or get through all the review material for a test.
1. Set Smaller Goals
When studying, writing, or reading, make the task less daunting by setting sub-goals. For example, if you are assigned 90 pages of reading, tell yourself to get through just 10 pages, and temporarily put the rest out of mind. It’s hard to start a massive undertaking because even when you’ve completed half of an assignment, you still feel unaccomplished. Nothing is more frustrating than finishing the day having only partially completed several assignments. If you make smaller goals, you’ll get the satisfaction of having completed an assignment and be motivated to continue working.
2. Create Rewards
This tip works best for me when reviewing test material. After setting smaller goals, like finishing one of 15 chapters, give yourself a small reward. Emphasis on the small! If you let yourself watch a 30-minute episode of 30 Rock between every chapter, your will never get your mind back on chemistry.
(Watching a show however is great for an end-of-the-day reward!) The small reward I chose was to paint a nail after completing each chapter—you’ve got 20 nails and won’t want to go out until they’re all painted!
3. Make a Schedule
Though nerdy, this tip works really well to keep composure during the most stressful times of the year—midterms and finals. When I get overloaded with work, it’s hard to get started on one project without stressing about the other six tasks. The best way to tackle this issue is to write it all down. Once you can see everything you need to do (academic and non-academic), it’s easier to start working on one thing. When you have seven big tasks to do, you feel the stress and pressure of all seven, every day. Make a schedule by laying out what projects to work on each day. That way, you only feel the pressure of two projects a day instead of seven. And as mentioned, a little stress and pressure can actually be helpful.
4. Make Multiple Deadlines
Almost implicit in the previous tips, this suggestion helps calm and prepare you to work. Look at each task you have to do and give yourself a realistic time span to accomplish it. Maybe a research paper will take you four hours, or maybe a reading assignment will take you 30 minutes. Once you see how many hours your work should take you, you’re better prepared to allot the time to do that work and you’re able to better prioritize. Also, making a deadline earlier than it truly is helps you relax and not panic if you do need more time than you originally anticipated. For procrastinators like myself, who need the pressure of a deadline to do their best work, this tip has proven especially helpful.
5. Tackle the Biggest Project First
Sometimes I’ll try “productive procrastination” where I’ll do all my small daily tasks while trying to put off the more exhaustive, long-term ones. I’ve learned that while it’s better than unproductive procrastination, it does nothing to help me de-stress. Instead, I’m constantly worrying about how to begin that one large project and I end up caving into procrastination. When I do start on that project though, even if it’s just doing some of the research, reading some of the text, or drafting up a very rough outline, I feel more confident about the project as a whole and am even motivated to continue working on it. So, set one small goal on the big project, tough it out, and even if you don’t come back to it for several days, you’ll feel relieved for having started. Spending a few days away from a paper for example, can also be beneficial because it gives you time to think out your thesis and direction.
The best tip of all of course, is to try anything and everything that helps you—whether it is yoga, tea, workouts, or one listed in this article—and to stick with it once you’ve found it. There are ways to work around procrastination and even use it to your benefit. When you use it the right way, you’ll finish your work faster and feel more confident in its quality. Good luck!