Study suggestion #1: Find your time

For years I have struggled to work when I'm expected to - i.e. during school hours/after-school homework time, and this has always seemed like the benchmark of how productive I can be. At some point during high school, I started to be allowed to stay up later (that is, after 9pm) working or on the net, rather than going to bed to read. Suddenly I was getting much more done. I'd always just considered myself fast reader, without realising that I was devouring books so fast at night partly because that was when I was most alert.

No matter how hard I try to get assignments done these days in spare time between classes or by getting up early in the morning, I never feel productive. Words come slowly; the process is a painful struggle. I constantly want to go and do something less cerebral - make dinner, water my plants, go running. I eventually chain myself to my chair the night before the assignment is due, and try to force myself to work by refusing to even leave the computer. The struggle continues (and when I say "struggle", I mean "minesweeper"), until about 10pm. Suddenly I find myself working ten times faster than I have been all day.

Of course, I know that my optimal working time is late in the evening, but for some reason I seem to forget this during the day. In the end I just give up in frustration. When I do realise why I've been so unproductive, the stress all melts away.

In short, an important part of time management is recognising when you're most productive, and scheduling everything else around it so the most important tasks fall in that time. For example, one should not write blog posts in "productive time" when there is an essay to be worked on. Oops.