Critical Reflection of My Productivity During Studying

In this article I will demonstrate the two major habits that challenged me daily while studying for exams. This article will reflect on my time studying for my high school certificate at the Illawarra Institute from the 3rd of February to the 4th of November 2014. I will be looking at how I can improve upon the mistakes of my past self and how time management and meditation could increase my productivity while studying here at Griffith.

The year I worked on my High School Certificate (Year 12) was the year I realized I lacked focus during crucial moments. I would study with friends and they would always seem to find a way to turn the topic away from what was needed. According to a few studies that looked into focus and/or lack of it, they found that once an individual loses focus that it can take up to 25 minutes to regain clarity and focus again. In this particular situation I became aware of the implications of studying with friends and decided to study alone. Albert Einstein was once quoted in saying “I fear the day that technology will surpass human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots”. Even though I took the initiative to study on my own I still couldn't focus. As I would start thinking about issues outside of any work I had to do right now and most of the time I would zone out to music or watch online videos instead. What I didn’t realize was that an effective way to focus was to practice meditation before studying as this has been shown to increase/grow the focus regions of the brain. As I’ll be looking to study on my own I'll use meditation as a tool to increase concentration and even stress for future studies.

What has also been found is that when Scott is easily distracted he tends to delay even starting the task for as longs as he can or is even more likely to ‘cut it thin’ as he says around deadline dates. This of course goes hand in hand with time management and/or lack of it. This was found in a study about the ‘Relationship between time management and procrastination’ and what they found was a link between those that have a tendency to organize one's time and a decrease in procrastination as result. From the results shown for those who organize their time efficiently and those who don't, I feel the best option for me is to start organizing my time through planners and such.