#heysprouht

Casually decides to start posting more pictures even though I don’t have the standard studyblr aesthetic

With the upcoming school year, I was doing some research about different productivity methods so I thought I’d share some of my favorites! Do you have other productivity methods you find useful? 

One of the things I miss the most about being on campus is studying in the vicinity of people. You know that feeling when it’s late at night in the library and you’re trying to figure out your homework and the person at the table over is furiously writing an essay. Neither of you know each other but if that person hasn’t stopped working, you shouldn’t check your phone for the hundredth time either? Yeah I miss that feeling. 

This is why when classes moved online my friends and I started studying online together so we could get that feeling back and be around people trying to be productive. This method of productivity is definitely not for everyone (especially not all the time), but if you and some friends want to spend some time together and study, here are some tips to help make Zoom study sessions productive:

Choose the friends you invite wisely — you want people who will hold you accountable and have similar goals as yourself. Most of the friends I study with have a completely different major and classes, but our goals for studying and doing well are the same. Pick a group of people that you know you can study with, not necessarily your best friends.

Have designated check in times. My friends and I would set the next break time as a time to check in with each other’s progress or just vent. Setting a specific time in longer intervals is key. The specific time set aside stops people from talking in between and the longer intervals ensures you can get a good chunk of work done. Usually my friends and I would check in every 1-1.5 hour (but if it was really late at night we would do more frequent check ins to motivate each other and make sure that staying up was actually being productive). 

Mute your mic in between!!! This is so important! 1) You don’t want to hear the background noise in other people’s houses or their keyboard while you’re trying to work. 2) Muting your mic ensures that you’re not talking during productivity sprints. Mute that mic and only unmute during your check ins!

Set a timer for check ins or do an activity for a predetermined time. It’s easy to get carried away and keep talking with your friends because you miss them, set a timer (maybe like 5-10 mins) so you all know when you should get back to work. Alternatively, my friends and I would play online games (like skribblio or Kahoot) which have a time limit built in. When the game finishes, back to work!

Zoom has a great feature called break out rooms which lets people in the call go to a separate room. If you have a feature like this (or you could always create another video call), you can use it to bounce ideas with each other. For example, one of my friends needed help with her resume to apply for a program and I’m really good at nit picking resumes so we went to a separate break out room and talked through it. We also used this feature for a bunch of other things like helping each other edit grammar for applications, listening to practice presentations, etc.

Share your goals for productivity sessions and what that looks like. For instance, I would tell my friends that I needed to go through some printed notes and if they saw me pick up my phone, they should yell at me. It also helps to check each other’s progress during check ins (“hey, I know you said you wanted to finish that chapter during this session, were you able to do that?”)