3 Steps to Stop Stressing in College

There’s a phenomenon going on, I swear.

Let me explain…you have homework but you can’t get yourself to do it until you are up against a looming deadline. Then you do it but are COMPLETELY stressed out about it!

What has happened to cause this?

I believe it is the over-desire to buffer during your free time. And you haven’t learned a way to not spend too much time on school work without pushing it up against a deadline. You don’t want to spend excess time doing homework, but you want to eliminate the stress about it.

I have the solution! And it’s pretty easy to do without taking up any more time.

Step 1 – Work in increments of 20 minutes at a time. During that 25 minutes, do not allow distractions. Put off texting, notifications, Netflix, Instagram etc. until the 25 minutes is up. (Put your phone in the next room if you have to). Then spend 5 minutes checking your phone for all that you’ve missed…but ONLY 5 minutes (time yourself). Let it be a short reward for your focused homework time. Then get back to homework for another 25 minutes. Repeat this until you’ve finished the homework.

Step 2 – Do the homework days in advance to a B- standard. This means do it when it’s assigned, quickly and focused, as if you were up against the deadline, but you’re not really. This trick keeps your time spent on homework as short as it was when you were procrastinating, but you don’t have the stress of the deadline. Then if you are satisfied with your B- work, you can just turn it in. If you want to revise it and make it better, you have the time to do that. Set a reminder to turn it in before it is due, or you may forget.

Step 3 – Schedule homework time. Decide when you want to do your homework each day that works best for you. Experiment with different times to find the time that you actually DO your homework the best. Make it a habit to do it during that time. Then stick with it! Understand that when the time comes, you won’t FEEL like doing it. Your brain will try to talk you out of it by thinking:

“It’s not due until Friday so you don’t have to do it now.”

or “Now is the perfect time to watch your favorite show on Netflix”

 or some other excuse why you should still procrastinate.

This is where you JUST DO IT ANYWAY! Reward yourself at the END of your homework time with all those fun distractions, but HONOR your commitment to yourself to do your homework when you planned to do it. This builds your self-confidence and you feel in control of your time.

Homework gets done! Unnecessary stress is eliminated! Try these steps. It works!

There are many more brain hacks I can teach you. Check out my Facebook page and sign up for a free mini-session to learn more. https://www.facebook.com/LornaOlsonCoaching  Space is limited so sign up soon.