Disclaimer: Some articles may have been truncated, or some elaborations omitted for brevity.

What can we do in boring lectures? In my post on http://icebubble.wordpress.com today, I said:

…actually I thought it through – multitasking during lectures is better than ponning them: firstly, you will be there to take down important and crucial notes (but that’s about it), and secondly people won’t arrow you. You also get to increase productivity, since you can do more work in the 70 minutes, as compared to just listening to the lecturer – honestly, who listens to the lecturer 100% of the time!? Those are the reasons why I wouldn’t ask people to pon lectures, and instead ask them to increase productivity.

Which is really what The Potential Blog suggests you can do in boring lectures:

These are five things I like to do in lectures when I just can’t pay attention. The key to doing other work in lectures is making it look like your actually paying attention (so listening to your MP3 player, reorganising your makeup bag, making phone calls/sending text messages etc. aren’t recommended). Make whatever you do involve a lot of writing and be as subtle as possible.

1. Prepare for tutorials
This can often be subtle AND related to the lecture topic. Very productive activity.

2. Engage in forward planning
Writing to-do lists, writing information in my diary etc. Can be subtle, makes you feel very organised.

3. Do reading
(Hard to do pull off, though, if you’re in a history lecture and taking notes from a giant book on your desk called “Material Chemistry for Engineers”)

4. Plan essays
The problem only occurs when you run out of essays to plan.

5. General other studies
If there’s anything else you have to get done try doing it. Got a computer and need to look up the call-numbers of library books? Do it. In fact, this one is a lot easier on a computer – the internet is a wonderful place. But you could also try writing essays or assignments or blog posts (not entirely school-related, I know).

Meanwhile, at home, do you find it hard to focus? The Potential Blog’s entry on “On the merits of a stopwatch” redirected me to Merlin Mann’s procrastination hack:

How it works
It’s called “(10+2)*5” and here’s why:

• 10 – Work for ten minutes with single-minded focus on moving toward completion on a single task. Ten minutes, and that’s all you’re allowed to do is work, work, work. No cheating, because (DING!) you actually get a break when you’re done…
• 2 – After ten minutes of sweaty, dedicated work you get a 2-minute break to do whatever you want—drink coffee, read 5ives, call your bookie, whatever. When the two minutes are up, it’s back to work on the next task on your list. This is important.
• *5 – You’re going to iterate this four more times for a total of one hour’s working/breaking

Important squirrely rules

• You do not need to finish your task or your project in ten minutes; you just need to move it forward
• If you finish a satisfying amount of work in fewer than ten minutes, STOP, and go right to your 2-minute break, than start another 10-minute dash
• Do NOT skip breaks! You are not allowed. Breaks cannot be missed. Period. Go surf the web. Now. Seriously. GO!

“(10+2)*5” can be adapted in any number of ways (change any of the three numerals to your liking), but remember: these goofy hacks only work because you’re a pathetic bastard like me whose mind can be tricked into work as easily as it can be lulled into torpor. Set your rules, follow your rules, and keep moving forward. Snap that procrastination by slipping your work through the back door.

Now go take a break. You’ve earned, you hard-working hacker, you.

And here’s a few tips on how to lighten your backpack. The Potential Blog loves the colour coding idea, and I share the same sentiments:

Lighten Up the Load

• Use a flash drive.
• Download reading assignments. Most flash drives can hold entire books in their memory. Many classic books you read as assignments are available as free downloads at sites like Project Gutenberg.
• Use your iPod as an external memory.
• Email your assignments to yourself. If you don’t have a flash drive or an iPod, you can send your assignments to your own email account.
• Color code your classes and tools. If your school work is organized, you won’t need to carry everything you own all the time. Color code your work so that you know the days of the week by “colors.” If green is the color for science class, and you have science every Tuesday and Thursday, then you will know to carry your green supplies and folders on those days.
• Throw things away each week. Yes, it’s a hassle, but it’s worth it. Make time every week to go through your book bag to discard the things you don’t need.
• Keep two sets of books. This may not be possible with all your texts, but it might work for a couple. Try to get your hands on an extra text so you can leave one at home for homework assignments.
• Take advantage of study hall. Remember you really can complete some of that work in school!
• Create a locker system. Create a system that allows you to identify exactly what you do need to carry home each night. For instance, you could start your day with all books on the top shelf of a locker. Between each class period, move the books you’ll need to take home to a lower shelf. If you come up with a system, you will be less likely to carry everything all the time.

That should be about it. Not too late to start now!

• This is a link which gives an introduction to 90 online file storage services (from Lifehack.com).
• Backpackit: Get organised! “Backpack is a simple web-based service that allows you to make pages with to-do lists, notes, files, and images. Backpack also features a Calendar and Reminders that can be sent via email or to your cell phone at predefined times.” – Backpackit.com
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets – an online word processing and spreadsheet program that allows collaboration between users. Requires a Google Account.

That’s it for my current list!

School’s starting tomorrow! The first week is Orientation – but despite not having any academic workload, I still think it’d be more appropriate to get myself slowly into the mood (rather than starting on academic work feeling like you’re walking out from a dream into a nightmare). Here goes!

Having trouble waking up on time? The Potential Blog gives a tip (along with 2 other sites that were linked to the post):

So my tip? Get a new alarm with a significantly different beep to your current one. Make an effort to train yourself into sitting/standing up when it goes off. Soon you’ll be doing it automagically!

Meanwhile, Steve Pavlina gives a personal anecdote and suggests practicing getting awake on time:

Go to your bedroom, and set the room conditions to match your desired wake-up time as best you can. …Set your alarm for a few minutes ahead. Lie down in bed just like you would if you were sleeping, and close your eyes. Get into your favorite sleep position. Imagine it’s early in the morning… a few minutes before your desired wake-up time. Pretend you’re actually asleep. Visualize a dream location, or just zone out as best you can.

Now when your alarm goes off, turn it off as fast as you can. Then take a deep breath to fully inflate your lungs, and stretch your limbs out in all directions for a couple seconds… like you’re stretching during a yawn. Then sit up, plant your feet on the floor, and stand up. Smile a big smile. Then proceed to do the very next action you’d like to do upon waking.

… Now shake yourself off, restore the pre-waking conditions, return to bed, reset your alarm, and repeat. Do this over and over and over until it becomes so automatic that you run through the whole ritual without thinking about it. If you have to subvocalize any of the steps (i.e. if you hear a mental voice coaching you on what to do), you’re not there yet.

And Matthew Stibbe at Bad Language lists down how he made waking up earlier a habit:

1. Decided what time I wanted to get up.
2. Set myself a goal.
3. Promised myself a reward.
4. Tracked my progress using Joe’s Goals.
5. Get clothes, computer and breakfast ready the night before.
6. Alarms. I set my beside alarm for 0600 – and this is the clever psychology – I also set my telephone to ring at 0605 but I put the phone on the other side of the room so that I have to get out of bed to stop it ringing.
7. Naps. Sleep is like money in the bank. If you overdraw by getting up early, you have to pay in some other time.
8. Earlier nights. In the long run, going to bed an hour or so earlier and having lie-ins on weekends meant that I was getting the right amount of sleep. Like jet lag the adjustment is a little painful but it only took a week or two to get used to the new routine.
9. Boast widely about your new early-birdiness.
10. Always leave them wanting more! (See my post on writing top ten lists.)

[Emphasis original; some elaborations omitted for brevity.]

After waking up, it’s time to get straight into serious stuff! Dave Cheong, in 2 articles, lists a total of 29 ways of staying focused. My personal best 5 from his first article titled “11 ways of staying focused”:

• Breaking things into bite sized chunks. …Breaking goals into smaller actionable chunks (tasks) is great – it gives me motivation to start and allows me to get things done in one sitting.
• Planning ahead without fail. I’ve found it really helps to look at my goals and task lists periodically, so I can assess how much time it’ll take to do something and determine the best time to sit down and work on it.
• Having positive patterns in my routine.
• Blocking out some time. I’ve found that having quiet time, set aside specifically for accomplishing a given task, to be very productive. I also tend to be more focused in the morning after a restful night.
• Keeping the results clear in mind. By focusing on the results, it is easier for me to maintain my motivation especially when working on things that I am not by nature motivated by.

[Emphasis original; some elaborations omitted for brevity.]

And again, my personal best 9 from his second article “18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work” (some of the techniques might not be relevant to academics, but can be adapted flexibly in one way or another):

1. Write out a daily task list and plan your day.
2. Apply time boxing. Instead of working at something till it is done, try working on it for a limited period, say 30 mins. This way, you keep your work fresh and engaging throughout the entire working day.
3. Do not check personal email in the morning. Instead of checking your personal email as soon as you get in, try starting work straight away. This will build up some momentum as you ease into your work day. 
4. Use the headphones but leave the music off. If you’re doing some serious planning or something computational, having music blasting in your ears may not be the best thing for keeping focused.
5. Fill up a water bottle. This does a couple of things – firstly, it limits the starts/stops associated every time you get up for water and secondly, it avoids being sucked into lengthy discussions around the water cooler.
6. Clean up your desk. It also helps tremendously having all the things you need easily within arms reach. For example, if you need a place to write, having your pen and notepad close by and easily accessible is incredibly useful.
7. Get a good chair. [not when all the chairs in a classroom are the same and most probably non-ergonomic]
8. Use shortcuts on your computer.For example, if there’s a project folder you access all the time, try adding a shortcut to your Explorer or Finder so you can get access to it with a single click.
9. Change your mindset and make work fun. For my last tip here, I suggest you try changing your mindset or turning work into a game. An unfocused mind, is an unchallenged mind. So make things fun!

[Emphasis original; Italics and comments in square brackets mine, to denote tips that may not be directly applicable to life in school/college [and reasons why they may not be done so]; some elaborations omitted for brevity.]

Before I end this off, here’s more websites to check out:

• “10 tips for keeping your desk clean and tidy” at Lifeclever.com
• “Do something you love doing and admire” by Dave Cheong

For now I’ll end off my entry here. Hope to see you around soon!