Five Efficiency Tips For Joint Honours Students

It’s hit week five in the term and you slowly feel yourself beginning to drag your feet. It’s becoming more difficult to wake up for 9 AMs and attend lectures, and your great routine that began at the start of term is fizzling out.

You find yourself focusing on one subject more than the other and you’re just not sure how you’re going to meet all of these mid semester deadlines.

Here are a few tips to help you get through!

Create to-do lists

It is not until you have everything written down in front of you that you realise how much you really do need to get done. Doing a joint honours degree, you’re always told that the work load is no more than a single honours degree. Now in some cases this may be true; it also may not. However, because you’re dealing with two academic departments, more often than not this means that deadlines are not taken into consideration. It’ll be likely that they clash. You’ll have three or four different things due in on the same day, or at least in the same week. A student’s idea of hell.

You want to defeat procrastination and increase your productivity, so what better way to get yourself organised than writing a list? It makes sense to have everything you need to do down in one place. Break down the larger tasks into smaller ones and it won’t be long before you’re smashing essays and back in bed watching your favourite TV series.

Buy folders!!

Simple, yet effective. More than one subject means double the perseverance, double the thinking and double the transference of skills. You find yourself having to work harder to organise your files. All those random sheets you get given in lectures will need a home eventually, they can’t live on the end of your desk forever.

It’s similar to keeping to do lists; having everything you need per module in one place really is beneficial. Also, what is not to love about going to Kikki.K and buying everything in sight?

Get rid of distractions

Joint honours students will understand the difficulty that comes with switching between two methods of learning techniques. When you’re competing with two different referencing styles, it definitely takes longer to get fully focused.

It’s always being drilled into your head that you need to complete your work in silence with no interruptions. People work differently dependent on their surroundings; it could be that you prefer listening to music whilst studying.

However, without disturbances, this will ensure you save time when trying to write two contrasting essays. You’ll try to convince yourself that you can have Loose Women on in the background when writing a critical response worth 30% of your grade, but the reality is that you can’t.

Set goals

This is generally another common tip to keep yourself on task. Even more so when you’re juggling a joint honours degree. When you have something to aim for within a period of time, the chance is you’re more likely to get it done. Get English out of the way Monday to Wednesday and then focus on Media Thursday to Friday. Happy days.

Reward yourself

There is no better feeling than when deadline day is over. You’ve smashed both lots of work and now you deserve a treat. Having something to look forward to when you’ve finished is just as much as an incentive to get everything done and stay on top of your work.

However, studying two subjects you’re passionate about is rewarding in itself, especially when you can choose them to complement each other. You just need to keep being productive and it will pay off in the end. Fight procrastination.

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