 What's up guys it's Josh and we're back again with another video if I sound a little sick right now it's because I am and I already recorded this video once and the mic cord wasn't all the way plugged in so it had no audio I started editing like what happened but we're good we're good we're here we're filming it again I'm excited I'm pumped same enthusiasm we're ready today's video is a good one it's going to be discussing a topic that was highly requested in the last video that I posted on like how to study today we will be discussing my five favorite tips for avoiding procrastination if there's one thing I think we can all agree on it's that we've all procrastinated at some point in our lives and for most of you you probably procrastinate every single day I know this is one of the biggest problems I had when I was in high school tackling those tough assignments and also that I procrastinated in my college applications a lot let me tell you I was editing my essays all the way up to an hour before they were due on December 31st and you do not want that to be you trust me so in this video I'm going to be talking about some of the skills that I've developed since high school to avoid procrastination so I can successfully handle the massive workload and stress that Yale throws at me so that sounds interesting stick around because I'll be dropping some knowledge I almost forgot to introduce myself for those of you that don't know if this is the first video you've seen my name is Josh Beasley I'm a sophomore at Yale University studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science this channel mainly consists of Yale vlogs sit down videos like this where I get to discuss some study tips or application tips for you guys and I also do like interviews and other things so if that sounds interesting to you at all consider subscribing and without any further ado let's get into it my first tip has to deal with organization if you have a big assignment project or application and it's just massive you have no idea where to start I recommend breaking it down and organizing it you're going to want to plan out the time that you work on each individual part of the project and you need to split it up into mandible sections to do that with each of these sections you're also going to want to have a goal of the time you want to complete the section by say you have a physics problem set that's like nine questions and you have like three hours free like after practice or whatever after school to get it done I recommend splitting that into three separate hour sections where your goal is to get three questions done when you're splitting these massive tasks in the smaller sub tasks it doesn't seem that big of a deal to start the big tasks because in reality you're starting one of the small tasks and once you're done with that you can move on to the next one or when it comes to studying for an exam you want to the week ahead of time plan out what day you're going to study what like oh on Tuesday I'm going to study lecture notes on Wednesday I'm going to start doing the practice problems and each of those tasks has a separate day and a separate time to be completed and rather than just saying hey I need to study for the exam you're like okay I need to review the lecture notes I need to review the textbook notes and I need to do the practice problems and it just makes it a lot easier some of these tasks may be overwhelming but dividing the problem into manageable pieces will make your life a lot easier to keep you sane another great point I want to bring up is Parkinson's law basically Parkinson's law says that if you have a task that takes one hour and you allot yourself three hours of time to do it your one hour task is going to expand itself to fill that three hour time slot so basically you want to set competitive goals and artificial deadlines are going to push you to get stuff done and keep you motivated rather than dragging out a task for longer than it's meant to speaking of goals and deadlines I'm pretty sure the early action and early decision college application deadline is in two days so if you're feeling stressed about your early applications or maybe you you want to prepare and do better for your regular applications coming up in December I highly recommend checking out the sponsor of today's video crimson education if you've been watching my channel for a while I guarantee you've been recommended at least one of crimson's videos that were created with the intent of helping students get into their dream school crimson will connect you with a team of strategist mentors and tutors that will help you create a successful college application whether that be SAT prep and tutoring extracurricular leadership and help or essay topic brainstorming and editing and the best part is is that it actually works they've had over 460 offers to top 50 schools just since 2015 and if you're an international student don't worry they have 25 offices across the globe so if you ever felt lost in your college applications or just feel like you want to stand out in the growing competition that just seems so intense these days I highly recommend checking out crimson they're creating an affordable plan that's targeted specifically for you I'll leave the link down below fill out the form and they will get in contact with you and with that let's get on the next part of the video tip number two has to do with the size of these divisions I was talking about your goal is to break the task into bite sized pieces if you're breaking the task into still big pieces that still are overwhelming still are threatening you're not doing the job right you need to break these tasks down into pieces that seem manageable and seem like you can complete them in a short amount of time hey if you can complete one of these pieces why can't you complete the next task you know it's just one of those things where like you just have to get started and then it'll keep coming a great way to help you divide your schedule work is a pomodoro technique which I talked about a lot in my last video that I did on how to study but I'll basically it allows you to divide your work into 25 minute blocks of work with five minute breaks in between so you can take a long like three-hour study session and break it up into six pomodoro cycles which all you have to do is really just look forward to finishing your first pomodoro cycle getting the break and then you're ready to do the next one and it's just a lot more sustainable also add rewards after each goal you reach like say if you study for two hours you get everything done you need to let yourself watch like an episode of Netflix or something you know just keep these small goals that are keeping you motivated obviously don't overdo it on the whole goal thing you don't want to like watch an episode of Netflix after every single problem or something like that but just like keep it reasonable keep yourself motivated my next tip has to do with the order that you go about tackling these problems obviously working assignments are not enjoyable otherwise we would not be procrastinating them but I guarantee you you can find at least one little piece of your assignment that you find interesting you find fun or you find intellectually stimulating so for example say you're working on a college application at least for me I do not like writing I mean I consider myself an okay writer but when it comes to like writing those college essays that was just such a grind and I would always push those off so what I did instead was I moved to the like the fun short answer questions the ones that would kind of get me thinking just to get some words on the page as soon as I was done with those I felt kind of like ready to just dive straight into the essays because I've already done a little bit of work done a little bit of work that was fun by the end of it I was just went straight into drafting my essays and it was great you want to do the small tasks that you enjoy in the project first leave all the ugly stuff for last once you've been warmed up and you'll be a lot more productive all right tip number four is to clear all the distractions in your working environment your goal is to create the best possible work environment this means if you get distracted when you're studying your dorm or in your house go to a library go to a coffee shop somewhere that's that's quieter somewhere that you're going to be able to work more you want to be in an environment that allows you to focus for a long period of time and once you're in a good spot you have a personal duty to minimize all the distractions that lie on your own person this means no checking text messages facebook instagram anything you need to let your phone be at least for me what I'll do is I'll go and I'll set my phone all the way on the other side of the room I'll turn off like notifications or whatever so I can't hear it buzz and I'll just go to the back to the other side do my work and I have no motivation to get up and walk all the way over there to get my phone other people I know will like completely delete the app especially during like finals period or whatever they don't even want to be tempted with that and I also know that on your laptop there's like google chrome extensions that will allow you to block certain websites during certain times of the day also headphones and music can make studying a lot better because not only does it allow you to listen to your own tunes but you're also blocking out outside noise that may be distracting all right we're on to my last tip which may seem a little counterintuitive but tip number five is to lower the bar sometimes a goal just might be too high we get stuck in the mindset that we have to achieve a certain standard or achieve a certain amount of work but in reality it's this high standard that's giving us this perceived inability to complete the task if we lower the standard we might be more likely to work lower the bar for yourself relax a little bit and automatically you'll feel a little more willing to work even after lowering the bar and then going at the task again I guarantee you you're going to exceed the original task that you set this will give you confidence and inspire to keep working a little more and as you begin to gain your confidence back you can gradually set the bar higher and higher and higher until you're back to where you originally wanted to be don't be afraid to take it easy for a little bit that's good for you all right that about sums up my tips for this video hopefully you were able to take a couple pieces of useful information from this if you enjoyed the video or found it remotely helpful feel free to drop a thumbs up down below it helps me and supports the channel a lot more than you think if you have any questions comments concerns future video ideas drop down in the comment section below i will try to read through them all and respond to as many people as i can if you're new and you haven't subscribed yet get on that as soon as possible and uh with that i will see you guys in the next video