Dealing With Cramming

Crunch time – the time that we are all familiar with. It is that remaining few days before a deadline that was once supposed to be the time when you should already be polishing your work, but now is not, because you were pretty confident at first that you have the skills to finish the project, and you have plenty of time left. Everyone starts cramming, forgetting hygiene and healthy living by eating fast food take-outs and chugging coffee, burning the midnight oil (and hopefully not everything else).

From college students, to working professionals, cramming is a temptress that a lot of us easily give up to, promise ourselves not to repeat, but still do it again for the next project. Just take a look at this article you are reading. We all just hope and pray for dear life to grant us the power to work on time, but we just really never learn. Who wants to make paper works when there is a world out there waiting for us to discover, right?

Unfortunately, we all have to deal with our work sometime if we want to graduate, for the students, and if we want to be able to afford a roof, for the professionals.

Here are a few tips on how to deal with cramming in style:

1. Organize. By organize, I don’t mean giving up on that unusual appetite to clean your whole room instead of doing your work, because doing household chores inexplicably becomes more interesting than your job. Take at least a few minutes figuring out all the tasks you must accomplish in your work. If you are writing a report or paper, list down all the major parts in writing, and set it aside where you can see it. Cramming makes you disorganized and prone to forgetting a few important things. If you have several projects with different deadlines, put them in a timeline based on their schedules.

2. Work in a different location. I have heard from a few people and have actually tried it, that working/ studying in an unusual place in your house (like in the kitchen, or in the bathroom if you have that big of a space) will make your brain more focused. This is because your mind is not at ease, as compared to working in your bedroom where you are complacent enough that a quick nap in your bed won’t hurt anyone. A lot of people say that the dining area is the best place for cramming as you have a good table that is just the right height, stiff chair that won’t allude you with comfortable cushions, and most of all, access to the refrigerator where you can quickly grab food and drinks to wake you up. There is also the sink, if you need a bit of cold water to freshen you up.

3. Follow your timetable. No matter how easy or more interesting the other tasks are in your timetable, stick to the schedule you made earlier. Remember that you organized it based on the deadlines and gravity of tasks. Follow the order of your work so you can catch up with the deadlines.

4. Resist social media and other nightly online routine. Chatting online and browsing videos might be a habit you never fail to do when you get home and unwind, but now is not the time for worldly pleasures and relaxation. You have a lot of things to do, so condition your mind to say goodbye to social networking sites for a while. If there are a few files you need to download off your Facebook group, get it as fast as you can, and without glancing at your cheesy and rumor-filled timeline. If you hear that magic “ping” sound the chat box makes when someone messages you, please ignore it, unless it’s someone informing you that the deadline has been moved.

5. Remember this night of agony. I know you have told yourself for an innumerable amount of times not to cram, and by this point in time, you know that it’s easier said than attempted. However, please make the effort to remember how tedious, nerve-wracking, and inefficient it is to cram. Even if you tell yourself that you can finish everything the last minute, it will never be as good as an output that is fully polished.

*Originally published by the Manila Bulletin. Manila Bulletin, C-4, Sunday, May 15, 2016. Written by Ruben Anlacan, Jr. (President, BusinessCoach, Inc.) All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or copied without express written permission of the copyright holders.