Staying focused during a lecture, instead of visiting Twitter, will help you better absorb course material. Instead, stay clear of the context switching trap: focus solely on the immediate task, cut out distractions, and practice focusing your attention on one thing at time.

Avoid context switching –– Don’t multi-task while listening to a lecture, working on assignments, or studying for an exam.

It’s worth considering how to more productively do all three: Naturally, one of the biggest time expenses as a student is hours spent attending lectures, working on assignments, and studying for exams. While it’s hard to entirely avoid stress taking hold, here’s some advice on staying balanced in the face of a million competing priorities. Suffice it to say, we entirely understand the challenges of juggling classes with everything else in your life. These academic anxiety dreams are incredibly common and are a testament to exactly how stressful school can be. I finished school years ago, yet still occasionally have dreams––well, nightmares––about waking up late for a final exam, suddenly remembering a class I’ve never shown up for, or opening up a test and not knowing a single answer. Is there anything that I might be missing?” I really want to become productive and organized so I can tackle life by the horns! I just cannot be organized no matter what I do. I want to try to use Todoist but each time I do, something comes up and I think that being productive is not for me.

Whenever I try to focus on one of those things, another one crashes and breaks. Got a question? Email us at would really like to know how a student can handle the stress and responsibilities of school, hobbies, home, relationships, part-time jobs, health, and self-care. Ask Doist is a regular column answering real readers’ questions about work and life, from the philosophical to the practical.

Todoist student plan