How to Stay Productive During College: 10 Effective Tips

It has been observed that close to 87% of college students in the United States experience difficulty with time management. Consequently, a considerable share of students among them also experience stress. These figures show the need to equip college students with a clear idea about productivity and actionable tips to practice it. College students are often as diversified as their situations. The blog aims to give suggestions to these students on how to stay productive during college and enjoy it.

What is Productivity Among College Students?

Productivity among college students could be defined as the efficiency with which these students learn their lessons and acquire knowledge. It shows how the students complete their college work efficiently during a previously determined timeframe. Productive students often complete their work without leaving anything behind for the last minute.
The main question that arises in anyone’s mind while answering how to remain productive during college days is why productivity is important in the first place. A sense of accomplishment that students experience while completing their classwork or submitting their projects and assignments on time is the foremost benefit of productivity among college students .
The following are the 17 tips we suggest as questions and answers to help students understand how to stay productive during college days:

1.How to Remain Productive During College Days by Scheduling Your Tasks Using a Calendar?

Both handheld and digital calendars could come in handy for college students by visually representing how to stay productive during college days with proper distribution of time. By actually seeing and externalizing the time division for each of their tasks, students can free their mental space from clutter and stress.
Calendars not only provide structure but also allow flexibility with a fixed baseline to help students prioritize tasks and appointments without failing to meet deadlines. The flexibility of calendars also helps accommodate new routines with each year of college. Here are a few free and user-friendly online calendars that college students could use to plan their days:

• Google Calendar
• Apple Calendar
• Calendly (free basic plan)
• Cozi
• Outlook

2.How to Stay Productive during College Life with A To-do list for Each Day's Tasks and Goals?

To-do lists are powerful tools that can help college students understand the things they need to complete. These lists also help them estimate the time required to complete these tasks or meet their goals. Taking a few minutes a day to create a to-do list lets students see which tasks they need to complete without getting overwhelmed.
Though to-do lists are generally beneficial, the length of these lists affects how to remain productive during college days considerably. Hence, it is important to limit the to-do lists to a manageable length with 3 to 5 major tasks for a day. These lists also facilitate the Zeigarnik effect, by which students remember study materials—the completion of which they suspended with breaks of unrelated activities—better than others who studied these without a break

3.How to Stay Productive During College Days by Sticking to Deadlines?

Sticking to deadlines with the help of calendars or to-do lists ensures that you achieve your goals in a fixed timeline. Further, you can also break larger projects into smaller and manageable portions of tasks and distribute them within the timeline to provide yourself with a structure to your workflow. Such a structure also encourages decision-making and leads to progress in work.

4.How to Stay Productive During College Days by Limiting Distractions?

You may find many distractions in your study hours during your college days. These include many things, from the buzzing of your phones with messages or notifications to unplanned visits from your friends and family. These distractions can keep you from completing your tasks promptly. Hence, here are a few measures you can follow to boost your focus on your studies:

• Switch on Do Not Disturb in your smartphone.
• Limiting the number of applications that can show your notifications.
• Sharing your schedule with close friends and family
• Studying in relatively quiet environments such as a central library or other study spaces
• Deliberately taking breaks after study sessions of 25 minutes or longer

5.How to Stay Productive During College Days by Completing Your Tasks During Your Most Productive Hours?

Working during your most productive hours is the most efficient way to prioritize completing your tasks on time. You can find your most productive hours by observing daily routines and the fluctuations in your focus and energy levels throughout the day. Besides helping to focus on your studies, this method also helps fight procrastination, enhance creativity, and find time for other engagements.

6.How to Stay Productive During College Days by Attending Classes Regularly?

College life grants immense independence to students. However, it is also time for you to show greater responsibility towards your studies. This responsibility also includes not skipping classes unless ill or for some other legitimate reason. Attending classes regularly ensures that you receive all the extra information that professors or other instructors provide during their lectures. You often wouldn’t find this information in your textbooks.
Further, being in a classroom helps you clear your doubts efficiently and motivates you to maintain a structured routine and meet your deadlines. Lastly, attending classes regularly shows professors and peers that you are ready to show up and put effort into your studies, thereby encouraging them to help you with difficult lessons, assignments, and projects.

7.How to Stay Productive During College Days by Joining a Study Group?

Forming or joining a study group is another measure you can follow to ensure that you stay productive throughout your college days. Study groups can help prevent a sense of isolation many students struggle with during college. The collaborative learning environment makes study hours more enjoyable and engaging.
Study groups are also great ways to improve students’ ability for critical thinking and presenting and grasping complex ideas and understanding their course matter better. Further, such groups help prevent procrastination as students feel more accountable for their work.

8.How to Stay Productive During College Days by Taking Enough Breaks While Studying?

Knowing your limits and taking purposeful breaks for five minutes or an hour provides you an opportunity to recharge your brain. Not taking such breaks often leads to cognitive fatigue and a fall in the levels of concentration and energy thereby, affecting productivity negatively. Breaks are also necessary to effectively retain all the information learned. The following are some of the activities you can engage in while taking a break:

• Spending time with family and friends
• Listening to music
• Going for a walk
• Power napping
• Watching a refreshing television show

9.How to Stay Productive During College Days by Asking for Help When It is Needed?

Asking for help is often misunderstood as a sign of incompetence or weakness. This misconception can discourage students from reaching out to their peers or faculty members while faced with difficulties during their studies. However, clarifying your doubts with other students or your teacher creates a supportive space that boosts your productivity and helps in the completion of tasks.

10.How to stay productive during college days by maintaining healthy sleep habits?

College students often delay their bedtimes to complete their tasks or to pull a study session during late hours. However many studies have observed that a loss in sleep time proportionately results in the loss of productivity in these adult students. Hence, getting enough sleep at night is one of the major ways in which college students can stay productive. Further, maintaining good sleep quality also encourages students to keep their study environment neat and well-organized.

How to Remain Productive During College Life at TKM College of Engineering?

TKM College of Engineering, Kerala’s first government-aided engineering college, offers programs at graduate, postgraduate, and doctoral levels. We also provide many facilities to our students to make their education and stay at the college as productive and comfortable as possible. These facilities include:

• A modern Library & Information Centre (LIC)
• Central Computing Facility (CCF) and
• Hostel facilities

The 930-square-meter library has a good collection of publications in engineering and management, meeting the intellectual and information needs of its students. Both students and teachers also use the central computing facility with business-class machines and high-speed internet connection. The separate hostels for male and female students also incorporate facilities for indoor and outdoor games, wi-fi access, round-the-clock transportation for medical emergencies, a reading room, and audio-visual equipment for recreation, among others.

Frequently Asked Questions

1.How to stay productive during college days by keeping busy for summer break?

Here are some ways in which college students can stay productive during their summer break:

• Volunteering
• Getting a summer job
• Discovering a new hobby
• Meeting a mentor for career guidance

2.How to stay productive during college days while also working full time?

Students with full-time employment can ensure productivity during their college days by following tips such as:

• Listing out three to five priority tasks they need to complete in a day
• Avoiding distractions during study hours
• Taking good care of oneself
• Occasionally rewarding oneself for achieving goals
• Learning while you are most productive during the day

3.How to stay productive during college days by multitasking?

Multitasking the right way is the key to staying productive during college days. Multitasking smartly involves combining an activity that requires brainpower such as listening to a lecture with one that doesn't such as taking a walk