Time Management
Overcoming Procrastination – Strategies
Here are some ideas from the Academic Skills Advice service on dealing with three
common scenarios:
1. Feeling overwhelmed by the size of the task
2. Lack of energy, interest, or motivation to get started
3. Not knowing how to get started
You may well have strategies of your own for responding to these situations. If so, please
do tell us about them during this workshop or afterwards.
Scenario 1: Overwhelmed by the size of a task?

Adopt Pizza Approach: break task into separate elements; allocate
each a time-frame.

Focus on just one sub-task; forget the rest; you are getting there!
Scenario 2: You are finding it difficult to get started because of tiredness,
boredom, or lack of motivation factors?

Set yourself a goal of just studying for 15 minutes, and stick to this.
At the end of 15 minutes, review how you feel.

If you are feeling more motivated at the end of 15 minutes, carry on,
but set yourself a realistic time limit

If, however, after 15 minutes you are still feeling the same, take a break, then come
back to the task later. When you restart, do the same again: work in short bursts,
until you are more energised.
Task Motivation
You could also try and relate the task to your long term career or life goals – every
successful achievement of a specific task is taking you in the direction of your final goal.
But how clear are you on these? Spend time thinking about these; discuss them with
others with an interest in helping you do this (career adviser, academic study skills adviser,
or counsellor).
1
Academic Skills Advice service
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills/
Real-life Reality Check
Sometimes it is hard to get focused or interested in a task because the topic or approach
to it seems dry, abstract, and detached from the ‘real-world’. If you find yourself thinking
like this, try asking the question: “how can I use this idea?” and “what personal
significance can I find in this subject for me?”
I don’t know how to get started
This can be a very common feeling about writing assignments, but can apply to other
situations. You have acquired a lot of information, but don’t know how to get started to
organise and apply it to the task in hand.
Try these ideas:
Brainstorming
Mind-mapping
Good for problem-solving.
Can be done alone, or with others.
Take a sheet of paper.
Start with a problem or a question, then
just jot down anything that occurs to
you.
It loosens the thinking process, and
gets you writing.
A similar concept to brainstorming.
However, mind-mapping focuses on a
single topic.
Start with a topic in the centre of your
page, focus on all the elements you feel
to contribute to our understanding of this
topic.
Draw lateral main arms coming out from
the centre topic – each lateral arm
contains a element of knowledge. You
send out ‘off-shoots’ from these main
arms, that add supporting knowledge to
these main branches
See example below.
2
Academic Skills Advice service
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills/
Concept-mapping
At first glance, looks rather like mind-mapping (see below)
The difference is that concept-mapping illustrates the relationship between ideas (or
concepts). You start with a key question, e.g. ‘what is a concept map’, and start off with a
line to the first key answer to this question. The lines will each have a ‘bridging word’, e.g.
“Concept maps –represent – Organised knowledge”.
You gradually build a web of related ideas. This is great for essay organisation, and for
giving an instant overview to a tutor of related ideas.
Talk it through
If you are stuck – full of ideas – but not sure how to direct and
organise them. One of the best ways forward is simply to explain
your ideas to others.
In the process you explain things to yourself.
If you are not sure who to talk to, then come to talk to someone at the Academic Skills
Advice service.
3
Academic Skills Advice service
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills/