The Productive Procrastinator

Hi, I’m a part time blogger and a full time procrastinator.

As a Biology student, I unfortunately have to constantly battle what I call my innate talent to be interested in everything but what I’m supposed to be interested in.

Here are some things and ways I use to get my work done:

Study bunny allow you to record your study time over the year and earn coins to buy things for your cute bunny. You add subjects and pick one every time you study and record the hours studied.

With Flip, you record you study time and share with other users how many hours you’ve studied. If you’re the competitive type, there’s a daily ranking for users in your country and globally.

In 12th grade, my classmates and I had a system in place. We’d go to the class group chat and send in time requests for when we wanted to be woken up to study.

Since everyone had different study time preferences, you were almost always guaranteed someone would be up at the hour to wake you up. I don’t recall ever sending that request to the group chat, however, I sent it to my friends group chat or posted it on my status. It was more comfortable that way for me than risking receiving a call at 3a.m from someone I barely ever talked to.

Study dates with friends, as long as you guys won’t spend the entire time chatting, can go a long way in ensuring your productivity. You get to look forward to studying.

I recently got into planners. They’re perfect in that they allow you to plan your day by the hour. There are planners for everything: meal planning, workouts, studying, self care, etc. You can get a planner for almost anything.

They work well for everyone and ensure that you can plan for weeks and months in advance. They’re also really cute and you can get digital or physical ones.

You can check out my Etsy shop for some affordable planners.

Before planners, apps were my thing. I had an app for almost everything. The only problem was that my phone never had enough space.

The apps I would recommend are Forest, which works for studying but can work for any productive activity. You earn credits that can allow you to plant real trees. It works great for focus since if you exit the app, the timer stops and your tree dies.

21 Days Challenge is an app that allows you to develop a variety of habits. You get options for health, studying, mental wellness, etc. and can pick which ones you like and complete challenges every day until you manage to develop the habit.

Duolingo allows me to spend five minutes on a language and think I’ve done something. That five minutes turns into ten and on a good day, 30 or so minutes. Even that five minutes is better than zero so I’ll take it on any day.

Quizlet and Ankii are great for flashcards. Even when you don’t feel like starting a new chapter, you can just go back and review the flashcards.

I love having study with me video on while I study. It’s perfect for people who don’t enjoy studying with others. It can be like studying with someone else without moving from your bedroom.

My favourite channels on YouTube are Dia, the Hanoi Chamomile, and Merve.

Using other people’s cute study or productivity posts can make me motivated to get started on my own work. Pinterest and Tumblr are my go to apps for study posts.

I put on TedTalks or Motivation2study videos once in a while to remind me I’m capable and should make use of all opportunities presented to me.