We love being distracted. We have grown up on the internet and can’t help but drift towards Facebook anytime our browser is open. We love to feel busy. It is a false sense of productivity. If you’re “busy” all day then it can feel like a successful day whether you accomplished anything or not. We also love to multi-task. Unfortunately, we’re just not very good at it.
The average person in the United States spends 30 hours a month on the internet, 8 of those are on Facebook alone. This averages out to about 15 minutes a day. But keep in mind this is the average American Facebook account. This includes your grandmother’s untouched profile and that account you made for your cat. I am going to guess that the average college student more than makes up for their slack.
Factor in the 150 times that the average person looks at their phone in a day (every 7 minutes) and you can be certain that we are a pretty distracted culture.
Here are a few tips to help you get back on track and actually get something done.
- Set goals, then milestones, then tasks: Writing “Finish Final Project” at the top of your to-do list is the perfect way to make sure you’re still hammering away at it the night before it is do. Break down the work into smaller and smaller chunks until you have specific tasks that can be accomplished in a few hours or less. Plus you get to cross more things off a list, which is always fun.
- Stop multi-tasking: The simple fact is that we aren’t any good at it. Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, according to CNN, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day lowers your IQ more than doing drugs. Be smart, stop multi-tasking.
- Kill all of your distractions: Lock your door, put a sign up, hide your phone, and if you don’t need it turn off your internet and shut your laptop. Go to a quiet area and focus on completing one task.
- Schedule your internet use: Pick two or three times during the day when you’re going to check your Facebook and email. Constantly jumping on the internet throughout the day creates a ton of noise and kills your productivity.
- Use the phone: Email and texting are imperfect forms of communication. They are simple, private, and flexible. But they are time intensive. If you are trying to be productive give your thumbs a rest and call the person. It will be a lot quicker and you won’t have to sit awkwardly awaiting a reply to avoid finishing that term paper.
- Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals: Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity. Most of it will be gone after 60-90 minutes. So take a break: Get up, go outside, grab something to eat, whatever you want just do something completely different to recharge your brain.
Now get off Facebook and get back to work!
Do you have any other tips or tricks to staying productive? How do you balance classes, work, and a social life? Let us know in the comments!
