9 Making Time Away From Electronics

A tip that seems to be universal to increasing productivity is to make time away from electronics and more specifically time away from cell phones.  Even if the student is not using their phone while completing the project, having it available to them subconsciously pulls some of their attention to what they instead could be doing on their phone. In fact, in a study titled Digital devices, distraction, and student performance: Does in-class cell phone use reduce learning, researches found a significant negative correlation between the use of cell phones and student’s overall grades (Duncan, 2012). They also found that students can not multitask as well as they may believe and report to others. This is why it’s important to create an environment where there is no multitasking and the student’s sole focus is on the task at hand. While it is becoming increasingly hard to escape the digital world, students may find it helpful to turn their phones off during designated study times. If done enough times this can also act as a trigger for their brain that it is time to study or focus on a project. Another electronic device that can easily become distracting is a student’s computer. This is a bit more challenging to get time away from because most students use their laptops for the research and writing of papers. The internet has made information more readily available than ever before which can be a huge asset to a student but also a distraction from the task at hand. While there are benefits to going to a library and checking out books or articles relating to a given topic, it’s not practical for a student to not expect to do any online research in the writing of a paper because they could easily be missing a lot of newer, relevant information. Something that could be helpful when sitting down to write is for the student to control the digital environment on their laptop. This would include closing any browsers that don’t relate to their project and turning off the notifications on their laptop temporarily so their attention is not being pulled in different directions. If a student recognizes that their primary problem when writing is divided attention they could also begin by writing their first draft on paper and rewrite it into their laptop once completed.