By Aydin M. ’25 and Ethan L. ’25

For many of us students, procrastination is the demise of our productivity. We waste hours scrolling through social media or watching YouTube. We constantly tell ourselves “one more episode,” but in reality, we’re going to watch another four. Procrastination can cause us to fritter away time instead of completing our schoolwork or doing any other productive tasks. Therefore, Students’ academic success is crucial to their time management skills, which technology has undermined in the modern-day. Furthermore, procrastination makes it difficult for students to succeed to their highest ability as it becomes more difficult to even begin to do vital school work. 

Tip 1: Taking Breaks Periodically

A student should take periodical breaks in order to be productive. Research shows that taking purposeful breaks should be 5–60 minutes. These take you away from studying,  refresh your brain and body, and increase your energy, productivity, and ability to focus. Social media and content consumption don’t work well as a “purposeful break.” You should instead find activities that give your mind a real recharge. They should allow you to breathe deeply, laugh, move your body, be creative, or “zone out” on purpose. These kinds of activities will help you re-energize and refocus. If you avoid taking frequent breaks, you will quickly burn out and take a prolonged period of rest which will setback your productivity. Setting breaks will also make work more enjoyable and allow you to have something to look forward to once you finish, which can be a good source of motivation. 

Tip 2: Setting a Screen Time Limit

Luckily, Apple makes it very easy to set a screen time on any of your devices in just a few simple steps. 

1. Go to Settings 

2. Press Screen Time 

3. Press App Limits 

4. Select the apps that need to be time-limited (ex: Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat)

5. Set a limit 

There are also other features where you can set a downtime for your phone and choose apps you can always have allowed. Specifying a limit for these distracting apps can avert procrastination by keeping you on task and preventing you from using a social media app for too long. 

Tip 3: Set Realistic Goals and Accomplish 

If you set realistic goals and ones that you know you can achieve, you will be able to completely concentrate on this effort. If you set an unrealistic goal, such as finishing two days worth of work in one day, you will not be motivated to try as hard since you know that it is impossible to complete.

Realistic goals will keep you motivated. If you set an unrealistic goal and don’t achieve it, you will feel at a loss of hope and will lack the motivation to keep going. Goals should be stepping stones towards achieving something or finishing an assignment. The word “stepping” is key because you have to take small but consistent steps to achieve something.