Last week, I wrote a beginner’s guide to the website Reddit. Although it can be an extremely educational and interesting website, I don’t think many people would argue against the fact that it’s a huge time waster. In fact, the whole Internet is at war with college students, and our grade point averages are the casualties. Here are a few helpful tips for staying focused and bringing that GPA up:
1. Limit your Internet time. Download “StayFocusd” for the Google Chrome web browser. It’s a really helpful web app that allows you to spend only a specified amount of time on certain websites. Find the hours melting away looking at Ryan Gosling GIFs on Tumblr? Set “StayFocusd” to only allow you 15 minutes of Tumbling each day. You can set it so websites are only limited on weekdays, and there is a so-called “Nuclear Option” for pre-finals study sessions in which you can simply block websites (all websites or specific ones) for a set period of time – an option which is, as you may have guessed, irreversible. Perhaps the coolest part of this app is that you can disable the limitations but only after fulfilling a customizable challenge– by default, typing out a long and complicated paragraph without making any typos. Your lazy self will probably be too lazy to do it, thus discouraging breaking the rules.
2. Set goals. This isn’t really an application or a gadget, but it’s an important tip nonetheless. If you set a goal (say, allowing 15 minutes of browsing the Internet after an hour of studying) you’re much more likely to study effectively. The break encourages the retention of information and having a break to look forward to will make studying less horrible. Importantly, though, turn off your phone and, unless it’s necessary, your Internet during the hour in between breaks. Make sure to deal with important emails and conversations before so you have no excuse to periodically go online and distract yourself. While technology certainly can enhance your studying ability, it’s important to not let its addictive qualities get in the way.
3. Sleep well. If you have an iPhone or an iPod, I highly recommend the app “Sleep Cycle.” For $0.99, you get a really great alarm clock that wakes you up based on when it determines your sleep cycle is in its lightest stage. You set an interval when you want to be woken up and it uses the iPhone’s gyroscope and accelerometer to measure your movement while you’re asleep. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now, and I definitely wake up feeling better than with a normal alarm. Plus, if you’re a nerd, it can be really interesting to see graphs of your sleeping pattern and all of the related statistics.
