From the category archives:

Procrastination

Why Killing College Procrastination Is A Team Sport: Overcoming Procrastination

December 31, 2009
Students of Nan Hua High School gathering in t...
Image via Wikipedia

I’ve spoken at length about procrastination in previous posts however I had a recent conversation with a student who got me thinking about a new aspect of procrastination and how to conquer it. My student started out with a B- average and went to an A- average in a single semester based on what I’m going to share with you today.

But first a little history…

Historically I had always attacked procrastination the way most people do. I’d keep telling myself to ‘get shit done’ and when I didn’t get said shit done I would wonder why I wasn’t capable of getting said shit done. This followed me for years and years. I’ve also spoken to hundreds of students about this particular issue. I’ve also found a solution that works for me and most of my students but it’s more complex than you think. You see ‘and this will be difficult for quite a few of you’ I’m going to share with you a cold hard truth that very few students realize but nonetheless is central to your overall productivity and long term success.

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3 Ways Freshman Can Avoid College Stress

July 16, 2009
A stereotypical freshman before midterms

A stereotypical freshman before midterms

Hello upcoming college students

Although almost all my students are already in college, for those students who are entering college there are a few important practices I believe you must implement and keep up if you want to have a stress free college life and avoid the dreaded college student stresses.

The first half of my university career was god-awful, filled with stress and worry primarily from disorganization and a lack of adequate study skills.  So I’d like to give up and coming college students about to enter the wonderful world of college some friendly advice on how to avoid college stress and keep it off for the next four years.

Number 1: Get a focused college study methodology and mechanize it so that it becomes automatic.

Mechanizing your college study methodology is incredibly important for long term stress free college careers.  Once the system is automatic it stops becoming a burden.  It becomes a daily ritual like brushing your teeth or taking a shower.  Here are some starting pointers that can get you started.

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Study Pulses: Why studying more is making you a dumbass

June 9, 2009

Study PulseHello all, today I’m going to explain why studying too much is actually turning you into a dumbass and an all round boring person.  I use to study quite a bit (about three hours a day) and this produced a solid B- average and a stressed out university student.  What’s more, I was amazed when some of my fellow students didn’t study much at all and were getting much higher marks then me.  I initially just thought they were smarter than me.  When I later realized that success in University had nothing to do with intelligence, I then started studying how they were doing so well and I was doing so badly.

I later turned what I learned into an online tutoring program.  One of the biggest things I learned was how to study efficiently.  So much so that I wrote a book on the subject “How To Study 30 Minutes a Day and Get A 4.0 GPA”.  Anyway, I just spoke to a guy that works for me and he had a great way of explaining one of the central study techniques within my book and online tutoring program.  “The Study Pulse”

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How students can conquer their Susan Boyle Addictions

May 11, 2009

susan-boyle

So you know that paper is due tomorrow, but you’ve been watching Susan Boyle on youtube all afternoon and can’t seem to tear yourself away to actually get your work done.  Or you do pull yourself away for a few minutes then back to Boyle once you lose focus.  Well I have a special little program that will help end your Boyle addiction.

Leechblock is the ultimate Boyle killer; very simply, it enables you to restrain your web surfing through restricting certain websites.  By either restricting the amount of time you access the site each day or by restricting you from accessing the site completely.  I’ve tested many web surfing time management tools but have not come against anything as easy to use as leechblok.

How to Install Leechblock

Instillation is easy; here is what you are going to need.

- A copy of Mozilla Firefox

- A copy of the Leechblock add on

- 5 minutes

Go to www.firefox.com is you still don’t have a copy of Mozilla firefox.  Then go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4476 to pick up a copy of the leechblock add on and download it, follow the instillation instructions (don’t worry you can check out the video below for a full tutorial).

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How Facebook is destroying your grades and the one thing that can save it

May 8, 2009

How Facebook is destroying your grades and the one

thing that can save it

Study secrets for stopping facebook addiction

Study secrets for stopping facebook addiction

While writing the virtual teaching assistant method I ran across quite a few students who had a real problem with facebook, myspace and twitter. A new study has found that students who use facebook get lower marks then those who don’t.

When I performed a time audits on students for the book, I found that they would check networking sites multiple times a day with some students literally spending HOURS electronically ‘socializing’ with their virtual friends.

A recent study found that facebook users had GPAs between 3.0 and 3.5 whereas non-users had GPAs between 3.5 and 4.0. Also non facebook users devoted 11-15 hours weekly to study whereas facebook users spend one to five.

There is an obvious correlation between facebook and academic success. The safe bet would be to delete your networking sites to preserve your mark. However, there is another important factor that you have to take into consideration. People who don’t use facebook are unpopular and usually dorks.

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