I’m begging you to manage your time

Forget everything that you think you

know about productivity. Literally throw

it out the door because it's not going

to help you here. And in fact, I'm going

to change your entire mindset around

this. We're talking about a time

management secret that's completely

backwards. The more you slow down, the

more time you actually have. Now, I know

that sounds completely insane, but just

hang in there and I'll get into it.

Before we do that though, I do want to

preface that this is not going to be

anything motivational. So, if you are

looking for toxic motivation, this is

not the video for you. This one will be.

You're not going to get a hustle harder

mantra from this because I'm talking

about real life scenarios that I went

through and how I'm able to manage my

time, but also manage my workload. The

first crucial shift that you need to

have is that you need to slow down to

actually speed up. Stop trying to

squeeze every second out of the clock

unintentionally. And the key word there

is unintentionally. So, let's cut the

nonsense and dive deep into this so that

it will make more sense to you. Firstly,

you want to set a clear goal. I know

this sounds so easy to say and a lot of

people say the same thing, but what does

this actually mean? If you don't have a

real set goal, then you're not going to

know what destination you're going to go

towards and therefore you're not going

to know the journey. For example, if you

know you want fried chicken, that's one

goal, aka you want the good grades, but

you don't know where you're going to get

the fried chicken, then you're just

going to walk around aimlessly and

hoping that the fried chicken shop will

be there, but it's never going to be

there cuz it's in the next town over.

That's the exact same with your studies

right now. You know you want to get good

grades, but because you don't have the

goal set to get there, you're just

wandering around aimlessly pretending

you're studying, but in reality, you're

wasting your time. So, you want to ditch

the useless goals like saying,

>> "I'm going to work on my project today."

>> That's going to be pointless. You want

to be specific and be as realistic as

possible as well. Don't say, "I'm going

to learn an entire syllabus in just 2

seconds." Obviously, that's not going to

work. and instead it's going to set you

back because you're going to feel so

anxious about not being able to do it.

What you want to do instead is to say

something along the lines of writing 100

words or writing 500 words for my essay

before noon or finalizing the

presentation outline by 300 p.m. In this

way, you give yourself some dopamine hit

because you feel like you've done

something. So, you feel like you're

winning. And secondly, it also breaks

the goals down in order to have a very

specific tangible thing about it so that

you can actually track the progress of

your goal itself. Once you have that, it

makes it a lot easier for you to break

it down into smaller actions. For

example, with the essay before, you can

write down the outline first.

Afterwards, you're going to write down

the draft. And once that's done, you can

then revise it. So, there's an

actionable step each part of the way so

that you actually know where you're

going and what road or path you're

taking to get to your goal. And this

focus action was the one that changed

everything for me. When I didn't figure

this out yet, I was literally all over

the place. And it meant that I was

juggling a lot of plates, but they were

all falling apart. But by doing this, I

started to see a lot more of what is

going on in my day-to-day life, and

therefore, I can fit my studying around

my entire life. For example, if I have a

social or an event that evening with the

society and we have a meeting in the

morning about it and then I have to come

in early in order to set up the event

speaking to teachers, blah blah blah.

But also, I have a tutoring session at

2:00 p.m. And also, I still have to make

content for my TikTok. And then I also

have an exam tomorrow. Then how I'm

going to plan that was to literally

schedule my study sessions in between

every single one of them. It takes me

half an hour to go from home to uni,

I'll study in that half an hour. I'll

study again in the half hour back. I

study during lunch break while I'm

eating my food. I'll study during

lessons when I know the topic already.

Sometimes the content is pretty obvious

and therefore I don't need to kind of

sit there and listen through it, which

means I can study for other subjects

during my lecture time and therefore I

save a lot of time already. But all of

this is done by saying, "I'm going to

finish one pass paper by 2 p.m. I know

that at 2 p.m. I have my tutoring

session. So between that time, whatever

free time I have, I'll be working on my

past paper." This honestly makes it a

lot less overwhelming for me. So give it

a go. Now, I'm going to give you a hard

truth. Rushing is what's screwing you

over. You think faster equals getting

more work done, but it's not the case.

You don't end up having six packs just

from doing 100 squats within 5 seconds.

Just because you're fast doesn't mean

you actually get the muscles quickly.

And that's the exact same with studying.

Again, same thing. What you get instead

is just stress mistakes and you end up

feeling so miserable cuz you're like,

"Oh my god, I didn't complete it. I

didn't complete it. I shouldn't have

done this. I shouldn't have done that. I

should have done this instead. I should

have done that instead." And you just

end up spiraling out of control. and

instead you worry about it and you lose

the time that you could have used to

study because you end up worrying so

much. When you deliberately slow down,

you work smarter. You then become

intentional with your time and you make

fewer errors and think more clearly. In

that case, you get in control. And I

want to say this is a trick, but it

really isn't. It's just that most people

don't do it. Start earlier than you need

to have what's called as a contingency

plan. And this is a plan for when

something happens out of your control

that you still have enough time to

complete whatever studying you have to

do, whatever essay you need to do,

whatever it is. For example, if it's the

Christmas holidays, I don't actually

know what my plans are going to be for

Christmas most of the times. But I do

know that when I go back into university

in January, I will have an exam. So that

means I will start planning to study

from like end of November at least or

like early November in depending on the

subject how many months how many content

I have to cover but I try to start as

early as possible and then give myself 2

weeks before the actual exam as

contingency. This means that if in the

holiday season something does come up

where I will be going out with my

friends, going out with family, going on

holiday, whatever it is, I already have

two weeks planned at the end of it for

me to have that in case time so I still

have that time to study if that makes

sense. It also means that I actually

push the deadline forwards and I

intentionally try to finish all of my

studying 2 weeks early. If I do complete

that 2 weeks early, then good. I have

two extra weeks to relax. But if not, I

still have the two extra weeks to

complete my work. You see what I'm

getting at here? Like no matter what,

you're still going to win because you've

set yourself up for winning. So when

that happens, you have less frantic

mindset. You're not as scared and

therefore you actually finish more work

cuz you're not thinking about it 24/7.

The next one I talked about quite a bit

as well, and I talked about it in this

schedule video, so have a look at that

one, but it's to not ignore the compound

effect of doing small study sessions

every single day. Instead of doing 15

hours a day, you want to instead do just

small 30inut sessions every single day.

This does two things. Having the 30inut

sessions more regularly than the oneoff

cramming sessions means that you are

applying your spatial repetition and

also your active recall which will allow

you to stick the memory of the subject

in your mind for a lot longer. So this

means if you have your mocks this time

but then your exams next time and it's

going to cover the same topic, you're

still going to remember it then. and you

just need to briefly refresh it, but you

will still remember the majority of the

content because you've done the correct

techniques to make it stick in your

brain. So, when that happens, you

actually have the compound effect of all

of the things that you're learning

accumulating with one another. And this

creates a momentum like a snowball

literally rolling down a hill. Real

growth comes from working smarter,

consistently, and letting the process

handle the rest. Now, sidetracking a

little bit, this is a bit relevant to

it. Have you ever heard of task

paralysis? Now, this is very common with

those of you who have ADHD. My boyfriend

has this. My boyfriend who was recently

diagnosed with ADHD and therefore I got

this idea of talking about this because

it seems quite relevant to time

management. If you have ADHD or you're

neurode divergent, it's a bit more

difficult for you to manage tasks as

compared to other people. So, what I do

or what my boyfriend does specifically

is to do simple tricks in order to break

it. Firstly, we do study crawls together

or we move to open spaces where we work

in cafes where we study in cafes. And

this is purely because your body needs a

reset from your normal day-to-day lives.

Once you start doing something like for

example, if you start studying in a

study room or if you start studying in

bed, your brain just kind of gets used

to it. And when your brain gets used to

it, it gets bored. So what you need to

do is to consistently switch between

places. And this is what me and my

friends did during my A levels as well.

We would switch between four cafes every

single day in order for us to not get

bored of one and make sure that our

brains are still there in a way.

Secondly, body doubling. By having

somebody there studying with you, it

feels a lot easier for you to study. So

when I was studying by myself, if I

didn't have anyone to study with me, I

would watch a study with me on YouTube

in order to feel that as if someone's

studying with me. They don't even have

to be working at the same thing as you.

Just having their presence there will

help you to actually work better. I

think it's all about the accountability

at that point cuz you're constantly

thinking like, "Oh my god, I don't want

to stop studying cuz then they're going

to judge me, etc., etc." Like I

definitely feel that all the time

whenever I'm like studying in a cafe.

And thirdly, you want to use the reward

system. Now, it really depends on the

type of person that you are. For my

boyfriend, for example, he loves tech.

So, if he wants a new technology, he

would have to complete a certain amount

of work for himself in order for him to

be able to get that. basically. So, he

sets himself like a big reward, but

obviously that's not always feasible.

So, it's better to set yourself some

small wins and therefore some small

rewards as well. Maybe a treat here and

there. But again, if you have ADHD and

you're neurody divergent, a lot of the

times it might be that you just get

bored of that small rewards. So, you

have to mix and match it as you go along

and see what works for you. I can't say

the same for everyone because ADHD and

neurody divergence is very much so

dependent on each person and it's very

much so on a scale but positive

reinforcement will motivate your brain

to keep going. The next thing you need

to do to tackle your time management

issues is going to be to eliminate

distractions. Now, this seems so

obvious, like if you are distracted by

your phone, then put your phone in

another room. Or what I do is I film

myself studying and then I put it onto

Tik Tok or I go on Tik Tok live stream.

But obviously, you don't have to do

that. Literally, just having your phone

up on the camera as if you are filming

yourself is good enough. And the reason

for that is because every time I reach

for my phone and I want to use it, I see

myself doing it. And because I see

myself doing it, I get like shocked and

I stop doing it. So the practical trick

is to not fight them, but instead to

manage them. You can even have like a

focus session set on your phone which

blocks off the other apps that you're

not allowed to use. So for me, I have

work which will turn off all

notifications that are from social

media. And also when I do go on social

media, it automatically puts it on a

timer for me so that I'm not on social

media for like 5 hours, for example,

doom scrolling. And if you don't want to

use that, you can also negotiate with

yourself on this. those tell yourself

okay I'm going to watch Tik Tok for 5

minutes but then after that I have to do

a 20-minut study session something like

that now one last trick that I want to

tell you is to delegate wherever

possible but I study alone how do I

delegate it to someone delegating here

means lightening your mental load by

using tools and systems firstly

delegating to an app instead of trying

to force your brain to have every single

information out there why not use a task

manager like notion to-d doistion

whatever it is that you want to use,

have the app remembering it for you and

organizing it for you so your brain

doesn't have to think about it.

Secondly, delegate to automation. So for

me, it would be like what I said with my

phone before, when I set it to work,

every time I go on the social media app,

it sets a timer and therefore that's one

form of automation. You can also

delegate to software. So using

voicetoext for drafting or Grammarly for

editing, these tools will handle the

repetitive mechanics so you can focus

only on the content itself. In this way,

you are still in control, but you have

the help that you need in order to take

off a lot of the pressure from yourself.

One last thing, your productivity will

be slow at first. Trust me on this. I

don't want you to then come off of this

video, try it for one day, and then

completely give up because it's not

going to be fixed within a day. It's

going to take some time, but you will

get there. The best systems are the ones

that works perfectly for you, and you

customize it for yourself. Yes, all of

the things that I've done here are based

on my experience and therefore have

worked for me, but not every single

thing I say here right now may have

worked for you as well. Try it out and

see if they work. If they don't, revise

and adjust accordingly. So maybe instead

of you using like live streams on Tik

Tok, you can instead use, I don't know,

throwing your phone into the bin or

something like that to make it more

productive for yourself and not be

distracted by it. So always try and

adjust things here and there to see if

it works for you. So here's the key

takeaways that we've said so far.

Firstly, you want to slow down to speed

up. Start early. Break big goals down.

Be consistent with the small efforts.

Break paralysis with movement and

dopamine. Manage distractions. Delegate

the boring stuff to your tools. And you

want to drop the toxic hustle culture.

Time management is about using your

attention wisely, not overdoing it,

because then you will have no attention

span whatsoever. you have the time that

you need in order to complete your task.

So don't worry, slow down. You will get

there. So if you like that video, don't

forget to share it with your friends.

And if you are done with the rush of

life, then make sure to give me a like

as well and subscribe to my channel if

you haven't yet. Tell me below what

small thing you're going to slow down

and do in order to get more done. See

you. Bye. See you in the next video.

Bye.