By Edward Singleton
It’s that time of the year again, students are near the end of the semester and they’re beginning to feel the pressure of accumulated school work.
As summer vacations are approaching, it is easy to get distracted and leave school work for the last minute. The cure to summertime lag boils down to two parts: learning how to manage time and learning how to do things that you don’t want to. This may seem like an obvious answer, but understanding the concept of time management and obligation are perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of student life.
Do you spend hours reading and re-reading boring posts on Facebook hoping that someone will write something interesting for once? Are you on your cellphone scrolling through Instagram pictures of your friends’ half eaten anchovy sandwich instead of paying attention in class?
We are all guilty of misusing social media, including professors, but social media discipline can greatly increase your school work productivity by increasing the amount of time you spend on school work. Some phones such as the iphone can help you decrease the time you spend on social media cites.
One thing you can do is pull out your cellphone, press and hold the app button. Once the apps are doing the Apple jiggle, send that app to oblivion.
You’ll still be in the bad habit of pulling out your phone in hopes of killing time, but you’ll see the empty space where your beloved app once was and remember, “Oh yeah, time management and obligation.”
You don’t want to fill your empty time slot with something like sleep or television. Those options are just as bad, if not worse, than social media black holes. Instead, go to the Helen Miller Bailey Library and attend a workshop or study in peace. East Los Angeles College offers a wide variety of student services ranging from Smart Google Searching from library workshops, to information on how to get a job.
Starbucks is also a popular place for students to study, but remember to bring earphones to drown out the conversations of others since it can get noisy. Relationships are another summertime snare that prevent students from maximizing their academic success.
You’re in love, we get it, but spending hours with someone who only wants to have fun doesn’t provide you the solid study time you need to get some serious work done. Once again, head to the library or somewhere quiet where you can both plug-in on individual computers or tablets just to do that paper.
Summertime lag doesn’t have to interfere with your academic goals. Follow the steps and remember, just do it.