Finish­ing work and getting it in on time was already tough enough, but now there’s quar­an­tine on top of it! The pandemic has brought new hard­ships such as strug­gling to find a good work­place and lots of distrac­tions. It can be very easy to start to drift behind, but that’s what these great tips are here for!

1. Plan out your days:

Write in a plan­ner or a note­book what your plan is for each indi­vid­ual day or for the week. This improves your orga­ni­za­tion and gives you an idea of what needs to be accom­plished each day.

2. Find your produc­tive times:

Know­ing what times you are most moti­vated and ready to work is very impor­tant. You can then sched­ule your work during the times you’re most productive.This strat­egy works whether it be early in the morn­ing, at night, or right in the middle of the day.

3. Take away any distractions:

Being home provides all the more distrac­tions. Remove them so you can focus on what you need to get done. You can remove them by turn­ing devices off when you are doing your home­work or keep­ing them in another room during class time. Some distrac­tions include: phones, inter­net, social media, email, etc.

4. Do work in chunks:

Doing a big assign­ment all at once can be very over­whelm­ing and frus­trat­ing. Much of that excess stress can be avoided by split­ting your work into pieces and manag­ing your time. Make that huge project into a few smaller assign­ments and then plan and prior­i­tize those smaller tasks.

5. Manage with a timer:

Using a timer is a great manage­ment tech­nique that drives you to attempt to finish work in a set amount of time. It also assists you in making time for work breaks and plac­ing time limits. There are many digi­tal options for timers includ­ing a timer provided in a smart­phone, the Promodo technique’s tomato timer, Toggl’s well-regarded timer, etc.

In addi­tion, some teach­ers and students gave their perspec­tive on how to manage work­loads. “A piece of advice that I have is to find time away from the screen and make time for what provides you leisure, star­ing at a screen can be really damag­ing and the best way to revive is just simply to make time to relax” said Arielle Else, a sopho­more at McLean High School.

Another tip from Thad­deus Rauluk, a chem­istry teacher at Justice High School, is to “know that you are not the only one that is going through this and it is okay. Take small breaks to move around and get your blood flow­ing, which will also temporar­ily get your mind off the work, so that you can approach it with a fresh mind at a later time. Make sure you stretch during the day because our bodies are not made to be sitting all the time. Also, develop a system of alarms on your phone to keep you on track. This can include when to start home­work, take breaks, or submit assignments.”

Exper­i­ment with some of these strate­gies and tips to find what works best for you and pushes you to be most produc­tive. Hope­fully these pieces of advice were help you manage your work­load. You’ve got this!