We’ve all been there; procrastination always gets the best of us. Sometimes you’re down to the wire and still can’t manage to get off Facebook or stop taking hour long naps. Why do we do this to ourselves?!
Luckily there are resources available to help you concentrate on that intro to psychology paper and stop you from staring mindlessly at blank walls.
Rescue Time – If you’ve ever wondered how many hours you spend wasting time, you’ll want to try this application. Rescue time measures the active amount of time you spend on any application, whether it’s on a website or actually writing a paper. The tracker specifically notes if you are active or inactive on your computer. You can also track the amount of time you spend away from your computer watching Law & Order marathons taking breaks from studying.
Keep Me Out- This easy to use website is the sort of thing I wish existed during my college years. Simply input the website you want blocked and save that website as a bookmark on your browser. The key here is to use the bookmark to get to the site as it will tell you how many times you tried to access the sites which will probably guilt you into finishing that presentation.
Wake-up Dialer – If you’ve ever been afraid of missing an important exam this wake-up call could be your savior. Enter your phone number and wake up with a personal wake-up call. The site only keeps your number until the call and has a section for blocking their calls if you end up with a glitch. If that doesn’t work, consider investing in a Clocky.
Quiet Hours - Similar to “Keep me out” this app works for Windows and Mac by dragging applications that are a distraction into a “Quiet Hours” folder. You won’t have access to the applications for however long you choose whether it’s a half hour or three hours. All the applications will re-launch when time runs out. So instead of playing Portal 2 and pretending to study you’ll actually be studying (the horror!)
Other fun sites…
Follow up - Did you ever wish someone/thing could help you keep track of all your social activities? Think about how often you forget an important birthday or lose touch with someone who could potentially land you a job. oellow up works to manage all the “to-do” items on your social networks. Social media can be very valuable if used correctly. Remember, each person out there is linked to hundreds of others who could introduce you to important connections.
Dear blank, please blank - If you’ve ever wanted to send an anonymous message to anyone who is annoying you, this is the website to do it at. Dear blank allows posters to write notes to anyone anonymously. For example: Dear College Professor, your business course is not the only one I’m taking so stop making all your due dates revolve around the same week; sincerely, a stressed student. Ah yes, a place to get out all our college frustrations.