Today I want to share with you 5 things killing your productivity in college that aren’t as obvious as multi-tasking and procrastination.
If you want to know how you can get more done this semester, keep reading and watch the video below because I share with you exactly how.
The 5 Things Killing Your Productivity in College
Number One: Perfectionism
I want you to understand that there is nothing wrong with having high standards, many people think that perfectionism is about spending too much time tweaking things to make them better.
That’s not really the problem. The reason why perfectionism kills your productivity is because it screws with your mind. Perfectionism is less about what you’re doing to try to make things perfect and more about the beliefs that you associate with not being perfect.
Beliefs like If I make a mistake, I’m dumb, stupid not cut out. If I don’t get into medical school, I’m not smart enough. If I have to work hard at this, It must not be for me.
Perfectionist are consumed with what other people think of them, they are obsessed with proving themselves to people, so they take actions that keep up that facade.
Sometimes those things don’t make sense like, not handing in a paper because you were afraid it wouldn’t be perfect.
But it makes sense to a perfectionist because then they can say oh, well the reason I didn’t do well was because I didn’t hand it in or I handed it in late and got points knocked off.
That way they can still maintain the image of being smart.
I did a whole video on how to overcome perfectionism and the psychology behind it. I suggest you watch it if you identify with the label of being a perfectionist.
Number Two: Taking advice from too many people
If you feel overwhelmed or confused, this is the reason. You’re consuming way too many Youtube videos on study skills and productivity, it’s no wonder you don’t know what to do to get started on prepping for your chem 102 exams.
You’re listing to way too many people online and you’re not taking action on any of it. Which means you can’t make any decisions on what’s going to work.
The problem with taking other people’s advice is that they are doing what is best for their lifestyle and their life goals. You have to discern what’s going to work for you, your academic goals and your lifestyle.
My suggestion is whenever you watch a video or read a blog post, if you feel inspired by what is being said, take 1 or 2 things and implement it in your life. Then assess if it’s giving you the results you want.
At the end of the day, you have to decide what works for your life.
Number Three: Poor Energetic Management
The basis of what makes us up as humans is energy. When you don’t know how to manage your own energy, which BTW includes your emotions, you can end up burning out.
This burnout comes from trying to keep up with everyone, with what they want you to do, who they want you to be and how they expect you to act and show up.
But when you’re burnt out emotionally or physically, it means you can’t show up for yourself, your classes, your friends, your studies. Because your nervous system can’t handle it. It’overchargeded.
This is why we have so many friends around us having mental breakdowns and suffering from depression.
We each have our own energetic blueprint. Some of us have defined willpower and motor centers that allow us to study, work two jobs and be social butterflies but some of us aren’t built that way. So, we need to create an academic experience that matches how we best function.
The best resource I have found to help me understand energy management in the students I work with and myself is Human design. It’s like the Myers Briggs personality system and Astrology had a baby. Human Design provides insight into your unique energetic makeup, helping you to fully understand who you are, how you’re meant to show up in the world and your life’s purpose on Earth.
It helps you to understand how you’ve been conditioned by all the expectations and pressures placed on you by your parents, society and the media and gives you a starting point to begin deconditioning and getting to know who you are, who you want to be and how you want to show up in the world.
Number Four: Lack of self-awareness
Self-awareness is the ability to notice your inner world, your thoughts, and emotions as they arise and how they influence how you perceive and act the world around you. Most of how we react to doing things like studying, writing a paper or taking a test are unconscious habitual actions.
Our brain has literally memorized what to do in those events.
When you become self-aware, you’re essentially becoming more conscious as to why you procrastinate, why you perceive studying for physics to be such a hard task and you’re less reactive.
You become less likely to behave in the same way you’ve behaved in the past, that might or might not have gotten you results you’re currently not happy with.
When we don’t understand why we do the things we do. Why we think the things we do it’s really hard to come up with a solution that is true and sustainable and not just patchwork.
If you want to know more about the science behind this you can read Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself or watch some Joe Dispenza videos on Youtube.
Number Five: Over planning and refusing to adapt:
Clearly, I love a good study plan but a plan is just a guide for action that helps you make decisions about what you need to do to achieve an outcome.
Which means in order for it to work, you need to take the action you planned so you can get some feedback and make better decisions. Because in theory your plan might work out perfectly on paper but we don’t live in a perfect world.
You won’t know if it will really only take you 2 hours to read and write notes until you sit down and do it.
The doing is what will give you the feedback to make a better plan the next time.
Overpacking your schedule and making your to-do list a million miles long isn’t going to do anything for your self-esteem. All it’s going to do is cause you to be disappointed in yourself and that disappointment is just going to lead to further procrastination.
Now if you find yourself never being able to stick to your study plan The Ultimate Anti-Procrastination guide that I created for the college girl who’s brilliant and tired of failing will help walk you through the process of finding out why it is that you keep procrastinating and then gives you the step to create a better study plan.