9 Genius Study Productivity Tips to Completely Change Your Life in College
Learning all of these study productivity tips and tricks is going to completely change the game for you in college. You are going to become the most productive version of yourself after using these tips!
Learning how to study productively doesn’t have to be impossible, I promise!
If you feel like you just aren’t a productive person and don’t know how to change, these are easy, actionable study productivity tips that you can start implementing in your life.
Your habits aren’t going to change overnight, but if you keep putting in the effort, you can become the most productive version of yourself in college!
This post is all about study productivity tips!
Change your mindset
Of all the study productivity tips, the biggest one I can give you is to change your mindset around studying. This is especially important if you are a big procrastinator.
Right now, your mindset when it comes to studying is that you have to get it done, but you don’t want to. So, you push it off doing things you enjoy and then leave the studying to the last minute.
But even when you do this, you are still doing the studying. You are going to do the work; it has to get done. You are doing it no matter what, so you might as well just get it done earlier.
Switch your mindset and switch the order around of your life. Do the work, then enjoy the time you have instead of trying to enjoy your time but worrying about having to do the work.
It has to get done eventually, so you might as well just do it.
find your reward
To get that encouragement to just do it early on, find your reward.
Especially for college students, it isn’t practical for a reward to be a physical item or treat that you have to purchase every time you study. Unfortunately, that probably just isn’t in the budget.
Instead, find a reward that doesn’t cost money. For some people, working productive enough to have time to go to the gym at night is their reward. For others, going to the gym sounds worse than the actual studying.
Maybe your reward for being productive is having time to spend with friends or going out for the night. Maybe it’s just sitting on TikTok.
Your reward doesn’t have to be productive. The purpose of the reward is to incentivize that productivity, and then you are able to relax and have a break.
prioritize
Learning productivity is learning to prioritize.
The most productive people you know aren’t actually able to accomplish everything they need to do. Instead, they are just able to prioritize the things that truly need to get done and forget about the rest.
A good way to start developing this skill is by writing down the top three things you want to accomplish every day. Doing this in the morning is so helpful when it comes time to get work done.
plan
With prioritizing comes planning. Once you have those three things you absolutely need to get done that day, take some time to plan.
Plan when you are going to do it all, plan where you will do it, and maybe even plan who you need to do it with.
Having this plan set takes the thought out of the tasks. You don’t need to will yourself to go to the library and study. The plan is already made, so you just have to follow it.
Check out By Bri Boutique planners!
I created a customizable planner system for girls who do it all, but want to do it better. Start with a binder, choose your base (academic or weekly), and add the inserts that match your goals—like budgeting, health, or productivity. It’s a planner that actually fits your life, not the other way around.
give yourself grace
Remember that you can’t be perfect and productive all the time.
Trust me, as someone who tries to me, I can tell you first hand that it isn’t possible. And quite honestly, it isn’t even something you should want to strive for.
You can have bad days. You can waste a couple of hours because you can’t focus. That is totally, 100% okay.
What you do next is more important than those bad productivity periods.
find someone to hold you accountable
If your study productivity is struggling, it is okay to ask for help.
Find someone to help you hold yourself accountable. Maybe they hold onto your phone in the library so you can’t be tempted to use it as a distraction. Maybe they go the gym with you every morning so you actually get up and out of bed.
Whatever it is, relying on another person is extremely important in the beginning of developing productivity habits.
Once the habit is formed, then you are able to rely on them less and less.
create the right environment
If you just can’t seem to be productive when you are working, don’t immediately blame yourself!
There are so many more factors that go into study productivity than just you and your habits. Your environment when you are trying to work is so important!
Especially on a college campus, you usually have a decent amount of options when it comes to your study environment. Take some time to really learn yourself and your habits so you can figure out the best environment for you.
Maybe you need background noise, or maybe you need silence. Maybe you like having things to look at, or maybe you need an empty study room with plain white walls.
Any of these are completely fine; just figure out what works best for you.
physically get rid of distractions
Speaking of distractions…
The best way to limit your distractions is to physically get rid of them. Go in a study room with plain white walls and nothing else so you have no choice but to focus on the work at hand.
If you’re in the library, physically give your phone to someone else so there’s no way you will end up on TikTok. There are also apps like Forest that will limit your distractions on your phone if you struggle with that the most.
Do what you need to do to remove the distractions that are making you unproductive.
studying isn’t all or nothing
The last study productivity tip to remember is that your studying doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
You don’t need to have the perfect study spot and your favorite drink and hours on end to get all your studying or work done in one sitting.
If you’ve got the time and have something big coming up, this is a great way to do it. But for your day-to-day, remember that some of your most productive work can come from the little pockets of your day.
Use the hour or half-hour in between classes to study instead of talking with friends or going on your phone. Even if it feels stupid to spend such little periods of time trying to study, it is way more helpful than you think.
This post was all about study productivity tips!
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