Student: Work Hard or Work Smart?
Staying in the library for long hours doesn’t necessarily translate to good grades. What matters is the productive time you spend there. You would rather spend a few hours and be sure of what you have done. The many long hours have breaks for social media catch-up, moving around trying to get the right books and opening the books on what is relevant for that day. You can only substantiate a few productive hours.
The extended reading hours shows you are working hard, while a short time with high productivity is an example of working smart. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
You have many assignments and units to complete. You also have your notes to read for the upcoming exams. Do you want to achieve all these in a day? Not possible. Instead, you need to sit and focus on one task at a time and do it to your perfection. Once done, go out and play baseball, take a shower, eat your dinner, relax a bit and rejuvenate for the next reading session.
Parameters for working smart
- Involves intellectual strength
- Uses less time
- Focuses on one task at a time
- Engages targeted reading and study approach
- Less physically intensive
- It’s qualitative
Parameters of working hard
- Too much to do within a short time
- Spend more time reading, revising and researching
- Studies everything with nothing in the end
- It’s quantitative
- Physically intensive with minimal cognitive thinking
As a student, you strive to work smart. How do you do this?
Focus on one task: You are up late in the night to study. You need to have an objective, once you achieve it, get up from the reading chair and sleep straight away. Before that, you are still up even if you have to go to the wee hours of the morning. Never multitask.
Stop procrastinating: You have an assignment by your lecturer. Let the deadline not be your decisive factor on when to start, Put it on your to-do list and set a date on when you want it done, whether you are in the right mindset or not. Do it to its completion.
Have measurable results: At the end of every session, you must have tangible evidence of what you have achieved. If not, evaluate the reason for not being able to make it. The self-monitoring and evaluation tool sharpens your mind to do better next time. It is an excellent way to set an achievable target for you to know you are accountable for every time to take to read or research.
Never worry about time: The time you spend on doing a task should not be an issue. What you do with your time is what is significant. Even if you spend minutes and you have something substantial, that’s it. You shouldn’t also fear to spend more time as long as you have qualitative results out of the session well and good. However, your brain reaches an actualization point, which never goes for long hours. You need to verify this on case to case basis.
Go to school and get an education, make sure you come out with excellent results. The formula depends on your intellectual intensity.