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unproductivx · 5 years

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How to FOCUS During the Holidays

I know - during the holidays, especially a festive season like Christmas, then New Year’s, then Chinese New Year (for those who celebrate) it can be so terrible difficult to put down your phone, turn off your laptop, close the YouTube tab or whatever it is you’re doing and just WORK.

Believe you me, I struggled with this so much - which is why I ended up wasting a good three weeks of my holiday doing nothing in particular and cramming everything into these last two weeks I have. Not good. So here’s a guide to those of you looking to shake the lazy vibe and get some work done!

Note that I based this off what works for me; try it out and see if it works for you or not! Feel free to reblog and add any tips you use to stay productive!

1. Sleep!

Something I find terribly hard to follow; but when you do follow it it does you worlds of good. If you’re planning to work the next day; or do anything at all - sleep early. If you’re like me and you have trouble falling asleep (maybe another post?) and you’re well aware it takes you at least 1.5 hours before you drift off; do a little bit of math - if you want to be asleep by 10pm, then go to bed around 8.30pm to be safe.

Enough sleep is important and even if you think it’s bs - trust me, you will feel a thousand times better after a proper rest.

So: sleep early because it links to #2 on this list. Don’t drink too much caffeine too late into the night and sugars before bed (oops, I’m a sucker for ice cream) is a definite no-no if you know it makes you jittery.

2. Wake up early!

I know the feeling. It’s 8am and your alarm just rang but your head is fuzzy;; the warmth of your bed just seems to pull you in and the next thing you know, it’s 10 and your “short nap” didn’t go as planned.

Especially for me; I find my work ethic ruined if I wake up late and that’s 2-3 hours of good, usable time wasted. If you like going out in the afternoon then try to get all your work done in the morning. It makes me feel much better and improves my mood.

Don’t laze around after waking up. Give yourself maybe 20 minutes to stretch, sit on the sofa in the living room so your brain kind of adjusts to being awake before you start work. Maybe you want to look at your texts; answer some insta DMs or watch a bit of TV. If you’re easily distracted (don’t lie, I see you) then set a timer. We wouldn’t want all that effort getting up early being wasted by spending those hours watching TV, now do we?

Go take a shower. If you feel sleepy, a nice shower will be good enough to wake you up. Not only is it relaxing (I use warm/hot water; I can’t stand cold water, thought it is more effective in really waking you up) it really helps me clear my mind and I suppose you could multi-task and plan your day in the shower.

To all you singers out there; SING IN THE SHOWER DARLIN! Nothing wakes me up better than jamming out to some Panic! at the Disco or Imagine Dragons in the morning! Play your favourite songs! If you’re living with a room-mate or share walls... play the music softly. ;)

3. Breakfast!

Righty-ho. Breakfast, the most important meal of the day. Make a cup of tea, coffee, milo or your preffered beverage; and be sure to eat some wholesome food. Perhaps toast, some eggs; ooh maybe some baked beans - or if you’re going for something lighter and healthier - yoghurt and cereal, or even some oats. Whatever floats your boat!

You need to have energy to focus and that can’t happen on an empty stomach distracting your mind, now can it?

4. Finding the Right Place to Study

NO, not your bed. Do NOT under any circumstances, try to study in your bed because the chances are, you’ll fall asleep or you’ll loose the motivation to study.

The right place to study should be well-lit, paired with enough space for your books and a comfortable chair. My study table is quite crowded; so I like to study in the kitchen - lots of room on the kitchen table; it’s well lit and airy. Crowded tables tend to clutter your mind, which is why a clean desk is always preffered. If there really isn’t anywhere for you to go or the lighting is horrible everywhere - get a lamp. Buy some cheap organization drawers from maybe Daiso (that’s what I did) and put stuff away.

The trick is to make things easy to put away AND easy to take out. Clutter happens when you’re like me and too lazy to put things back where you took them from.

So, in summary :

- well lit

- enough room to work

- not cluttered

- comfortable chair (not too comfy; we don’t want to be drifting off to sleep)

5. Music/Ambient Noise

A popular method of really getting into that zone is to use study music - usually lo-fi, no lyric instrumental music. I don’t have anything against lyrics;; its just the words tend to distract you when you’re working but if you’re someone who can work with that type of music and that’s what works for you, go ahead!

I for one, definitely can’t. My favourite playlist has to be Brain Food on Spotify - I like the electronic beats and it really feeds my brain. It’s jumpy but not too wild; just perfect to excite my mind on a hazy morning. I’d also reccomend Instrumental Study also from Spotify; it’s a more mello kind of music. Spotify and Youtube have fantastic study playlists and music available so you’ll definitely find something to your tastes!

If you’re not one for music; then ambient noise/white noise are great silence blockers! Websites like Coffitivity offer the ambient noise of a coffee shop for you to work; and there are multiple other sites like https://www.noisli.com and https://asoftmurmur.com (also available as an app) that can help you study/relax! There are forest noises; rain noises; and a huge number of ambient whie noise that can help you focus.

note- this is not sponsored by anyone;; i just like these sites and apps and I find them very useful!

6. Focus Apps/Pomodoro Timers

So one of the most effective work flow methods is the pomodoro one; my personal favourite. You go through a cycle of work (perhaps you set a time of 25min or 30min) and then get a short break of 5-10 minutes afterwards. The apps I use to do this (I have them on my phone) are Forest (my personal favourite; I upgraded to premium and I’ll elaborate more later), Tide (a good alternative to Forest; it’s what I used before Forest and comes with ambient nose like rain, ocean waves, a library, etc. and can also be used to help you sleep! Really love the app!), as well as Flipd (gaining popularity across studygrams particularly; and basically locks you out of your phone so you can get work done), and lastly TickTick which is a to-do list plus pomodoro timer!

Alright - so I like Forest because it’s a great idea; you set a timer for say, 35min and when you set that timer, you plant a tree. If you exit Forest during those 35min, it will kill your tree. So this is the baseline motivation to stay off your phone (to grow the tree). Flipd doesn’t work as well for me and I like to Google things on my phone (vocab, theorems, etc) so Forest premium lets me whitelist applications like Google Chrome so I can use those apps and it won’t kill my tree.

7. Ready, Set, Go!

Now that you’re wide awake, energized and in the mood - play your music and start that timer! Go! Start working without distractions - because that’s the biggest thing about holidays. The temptation to procrastinate is so real. But drill yourself into a routine like this and get used to working, because the pay-off is huge and you’ll thank yourself you didn’t do it later.

Hey! So I hoped this helped you and if it did, share this so that other people can benefit too! If you have any other suggestions/tips, do share! I’m excited to see what I can learn from the rest of you :)

With that, I wish you happy holidays (or what’s left of it) and a very happy new year! p.s. new year’s resolution post? y/n?

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