It typically takes me about 3 hours to write a decent one page essay. Two and a half of those hours are spent clicking between Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter and 30 minutes are spent actually writing. This doesn’t just happen with essays either.My math homework, video projects and even my office work tend to take a lot longer due to social media websites. My experience is typical for many college students that I have come in contact with. We have so many different devices and websites that demand our attention and homework often gets pushed to the back burner. So many people are dealing with this problem of multi-tasking, yet many don’t seek out techniques and strategies to combat it. Today, I am going to give you some tips to help you shave a couple of hours off of your writing time.
The easiest method is to simply get off of the internet. If all you need to complete an assignment is an offline word processor, then this is very simple. Just turn off the Wifi or unplug the ethernet cord and don’t turn it back on until you finish your homework. However, if your assignment requires use of the internet things can get a bit tricky. Some people have tried things like blocking certain websites with child blocking software or purchasing expensive task focusing software like Rescue-Time. Students have even gone so far as to give out their email and passwords for social media sites and demanding their friends to lock them out. Those extreme measures work, but in the time it takes to implement them, you could have already been done with your essay. My best technique would be to exhibit massive amounts of self-control by only rewarding yourself with a certain website until you get to a specific point in your assignment. Limiting the amount of time with that reward also helps.
For students with phones that seem to explode with text messages as soon as they start chipping away at their assignment, a simple reply that states your large amount of work will usually deter even the most persistent of friends. Stowing your smartphone in a place that you cannot access it will also help stop the temptation to text.
Hopefully these tips will help you reevaluate the way you work on your assignments. If you follow these techniques, pretty soon you too can write a 30 minute essay.