The Ultimate Guide to Maximum Productivity as a Student (Optimize Your Schedule!)

Want to learn how you can maximize your schedule as a student and become the highest performer/achiever in your cohort?

Just a disclaimer before I begin, I hope the audience reading this isn’t below the age of 16, because I personally think that before that age, you should really just be enjoying life and not worrying about all this stuff.

With that out of the way, let’s begin!

In a rapidly changing world where achieving ‘success’ is becoming increasingly difficult, demands on students are rising as well.

Being the top of your high school class, and getting A’s on most of your assignments or exams is no longer going to make you ‘successful’.

There’s always going to be other students around you who are doing, or trying to do, more.

For example, there might be a student who’s already in the talks for a full-ride scholarship to a top university in the country, or to be sponsored throughout their studies by a well-reputed firm to eventually join their team.

Or, there might be a student who’s working extremely hard on a side hustle like day trading or an e-commerce business (yes, these things do actually work if you’re prepared to put in the time and effort to learn).

There could even be a student who’s working close to full-time hours on top of their school hours every week, saving for their first house deposit on an investment property!

The point is, there are lots of different ways you can set yourself out apart from the rest of the students around you and become the highest performing individual you can be, even if you’re surrounded by straight A students and relatively high achievers to begin with.

What if you could be doing more with your time?

In this article, I’ll help you develop a new mindset to boost your general level of productivity, and then help you come up with a step-by-step strategy to upgrade your life.

I’ll help you become the ultimate, highest performing student and the winner you aspire to be.

They Say That Your Time is Your Most Valuable Asset

The first step to becoming the most productive person you can be is to recognize that your time is the single most valuable asset you will ever possess.

All across the world, people can find themselves in different situations and positions in life.

Some are rich, some are still getting there.

Some are smart and get good grades in school, while others focus their attention elsewhere and look for other ways to find success in life.

But no matter who or where you are, everybody, including you, has the same 24 hours in a day.

If you’re privileged enough to have a device and internet connection to be reading this, you’ve got the chance to do great things with your time.

If you just take a look around you, and really take the time to analyze what people are doing throughout their daily schedules, I can promise that you’ll pretty easily find that most people in today’s world aren’t very cautious of how they spend their time.

They’re comfortable with wasting their time on fruitless things like endlessly scrolling on social media, or watching the latest YouTube vlogs.

Ask yourself:

Is the average person around me in good shape?
Does the average person seem to be smart?
Are they action-takers? Or do they more or less just go with the flow and do whatever everyone else is doing?

And while I’m not necessarily saying that you have to be fully switch on 100% of time or can’t ever take breaks, I am saying that most people, especially the younger generations today, unfortunately don’t have a very strong mindset for working hard and pushing to achieve their goals.

I can guarantee you that if you were to properly analyze the way the average student today spends their time and split it up into 5-minute increments/slots, you’d realize just how lazy we’ve all gotten thanks to the ease and comfort of modern technology.

If people were to be fully honest, it’s probably something like a 30:70 split between time spent productively and unproductively.

I don’t say this to brag, but in high school, I was a top 3 student in the school in terms of grades.

On top of this I was also one of the fittest, winning many athletic competitions such as the school pull up competition, hitting 20 clean reps at 17 years old.

I found time to hit the gym four times a week, and in the evenings also saved time for homework, as well as self-study on other things I wanted to learn such as side hustles and gaining extra knowledge, which I’d say I spent about 1–3 hours a night on, on average.

Then, I worked 25–30 hours a week consistently during the school terms, working on Friday afternoons after school, and all throughout Saturday and Sunday (I was lucky that I had a job that paid well, and was also easygoing and enjoyable since my best mate worked there as well).

Then, during the school holidays I’d bump the hours up to a full time schedule, clocking in between 55 and 70 hours a week, whilst keeping on top of gym, homework and self-study.

I’m not saying this to try and impress you, but instead to impress upon you, and to show you what is possible (in case you’re not currently tapping into your full potential yet!).

At the time, I was saving money with a friend for our first house deposit on an investment property, and we together had managed to save up roughly $150,000 total in cash by the time we were both 18 years old.

This kind of work ethic opened up a myriad of doors and opportunities for me to take advantage of as I grew older and explored my different options.

However, while I was certainly a hard worker, I knew people who were doing far more than me.

For example, I had a friend who was in the jazz band, captain of multiple sports teams, working similar hours at his part time job, and getting better grades than I was.

He even eventually got offered multiple impressivescholarships to top reputed universities and institutions.

By age 17, he’d been offered a funded pathway into one of the country’s top accounting firms, with the firm paying his tuition fees all throughout university, and guaranteeing him a graduate role and a post-entry level position.

He obviously went on to be very successful, and became the CEO of a very large firm in the country as well.

On the contrary, there were people who were getting mediocre grades, were out of shape, and constantly complained about how difficult their school lives were.

I also had multiple friends who weren’t in shape at all, were getting okay grades, and didn’t have much going for them outside of school either.

These were the people who chose to live a comfortable life while they could (thanks to all the modern technology), instead of working their hardest and making things happen, blaming all their shortcomings on external factors that they could’ve easily overcome.

They were never ready to admit it, but the vast majority of their time was spent on their phones or computers watching useless videos and TV shows instead of doing anything productive.

And when you tried to talk to them, they’d come back with the argument that they were still getting ‘good grades’ in school, and therefore were doing everything they needed to.

They never realized the kind of potential they truly had in them.

They would look at people like me and the other harder working students in the cohort, and then would blame the differences in the results and the way our lives looked all on external factors, such as genetics, upbringing, luck, etc.

I’m certainly not trying to belittle those people for not working hard, but you do need to learn to be careful with your time, as it is most definitely going to fly by quicker than you think.

You have no idea how many of my old friends are now telling me they wish they’d worked harder when they were younger and had all the time, energy and freedom in the world to make things happen, instead of watching TikToks and liking posts on social media.

I’m certainly not saying that people aren’t working hard, and certainly not trying to take away from the success that hard working students are achieving, but I want to try and raise the bar when it comes to what people deem to be ‘hard working’.

Getting good grades alone, in school, shouldn’t be the only goal.

If you’re truly a winner and deep down you know it, simply having good grades isn’t going to be enough.

While that certainly is important, there’s lots more that students could be doing with their time to add value to their lives and inch closer towards being high performers.

Much more than most people believe they are capable of doing.

I want all of us to be able to see the true potential in what we could be doing, instead of simply stopping and being satisfied just because that’s what everyone else, or even the ‘smart kids’ are achieving.

I want us all to aim to do more.

To do the most that we genuinely can, and not just enough to get by with the standards, or what we get praised for.

I want everybody reading this to be exceeding expectations.

And I want to help YOU achieve this starting today.

Recognize That Your Decisions Have Led You to Where You Are Now

Fundamentally, almost everything about our lives is a result of the decisions we’ve made right from the moment we were born, all the way until now.

Aside from the obvious things such as your height, your parents’ income, the area you grew up in, etc.

Always Remember That the Work You Put in Now Will Benefit You Later On

Building on top of the previous point about your decisions, I want to bring in the idea that as a younger person, all the work you do now will benefit you later on.

Chances are, you’re not going to look back on your life when you’re nearing the end of your life in your deathbed, and wish you’d spent more time watching TikTok, or smoking and vaping.

But there is a very real possibility that you’ll look back and wish you had worked harder and been more successful (if that’s something that’s important to you).

I personally think that would be one of the absolute worst positions to be in, realizing you’ve run out of time and still have lots of things you wish you could have done.

Again, I don’t necessarily mean that you always need to be working, but do something that’s going to add value to your life, and that you’ll be proud of when you look back 20 or 30 years from now.

Spending quality time with your friends (but obviously not all your time) is a good, valuable way to spend your time.
Learning an extra skill such as teaching yourself to code online is a valuable way to spend your time.
Working extra hours at your part time job to save for university fees is a valuable way to spend time.
Studying harder to improve your chances of acceptance to a top university adds value to your time.

There are lots of ways you can spend your time effectively, in a way that will add true value and help you grow as a person, and as a young professional.

Other People Don’t Care About Your Excuses, Neither Should You…

Even if you bring up the argument that some people may be naturally luckier than others, the point still stands.

Sure, some men are born taller than others.

I myself am quite short, I’m only 5"6. I haven’t used that as an excuse to fall back on when I don’t succeed in the things I’m doing.

It’s no secret that tall men have the advantage in dating.

However, a short man who spends all his time wishing he was taller will never find the woman of his dreams.

It doesn’t matter that he’s short, as at the end of the day, he’ll end up wishing he’d actually put in the effort and found himself a good woman.

Because there certainly is a chance for him to be successful in dating, if he plays his cards right.

Some people are born into wealthy families, while others just manage to get by.

However, if a less wealthy child spends all of his or her time wishing that their parents made more money, they’ll never get to a strong financial position where they can enjoy the finer things in life.

Sure, it might take more work than it would for others, but it can still be done, and should be strived for.

While these are all examples of things that we can’t realistically change, but can certainly leave some advantaged and others disadvantaged, they’re not to be used as excuses.

At the end of the day, no matter how you’re born, if you’re privileged enough to be reading this article from the safety of your own home, you’ve got everything you need to achieve success, whatever that may look like for you.

Everyone has to run their own race, and those who decide to use unchangeable factors as their excuses for not trying their best, will inevitably get left behind.

Let’s begin to move away from the stigma that everyone automatically deserves to be successful, and instead realize that:

Success will come to those who work hard and smart for it.

For Some Insight…

I was recently watching a video on YouTube, where a sports coach/teacher at a university was running an exercise to display this beautifully with his students.

He had an entire class of students lined up side by side, prepared to run a sprint race, with the winner receiving a $100 bill.

However, before he said “go!”, he listed a number of statements, and students were instructed to take two steps forwards if these statements applied to them.

The others were to stay where they were.

These statements included things like:

I’ve never had to worry about when my next meal would be.
I’ve never had to help mom or dad out with paying the bills.
I had the privilege of a private education growing up.

There were lots more statements than this, but the differences in the way that these students had all grown up were night and day by the time the coach was done reading out all the statements.

Some kids were about halfway to the finish line, while some were still right at the start.

It was more than clear who had the advantage going into this race.

However, despite any advantages or disadvantages that the competitors had, everybody still had to run the race, and give it their best shot if they wanted to win the $100 bill.

And true enough, the kids at the front were the winners of the race.

I think this was an absolutely wonderful video that gives an insight into not only the size of the impact that our natural circumstances can have on the course of our lives, but also the harsh truth and reality that it’s up to us to make the most of what we’re given.

If we want to win, that is.

I’ll drop the video below so you can watch it yourself, which I’d highly recommend.

While this was meant to be an exercise to demonstrate the impact of the privileges that being born into a wealthier family comes with, I think the principles learnt can still be applied to other aspects of life as well.

See, in 20 years, even though you and another person may end up working at the exact same job earning $700k a year, you never know what they would’ve had to have gone through or done in order to reach that position.

It could’ve been more than what you had to do, or less.

All simply because of the cards they were dealt when they were born.

And while credit certainly should be given to whoever has worked harder to get there, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter that much.

You’ve both ended up at the same place, and are both successful winners.

I guess if there’s one thing that I’d want you to be able to take away from this section, it’s that you can’t waste all your time and effort complaining about things that you can’t change.

Life isn’t fair.

It never has been, and never will be.

Regardless of the position you start in, it’s up to you to find success, because no one else will do it for you.

If you’d rather complain about the unfairness and never actually put in the work, that’s fine.

But just know that there are always people who have it worse than you, doing more and achieving more than you.

Complaining about the cards you’re dealt won’t help you win.

Playing them better than your competitors will.

A Holistic Shift in Your Mindset and Habits

Hopefully, by now you’re starting to see the point.

See the value in putting in the hard work now, so that you can get ahead of your peers and achieve the levels of success you dream of.

Using the aforementioned points, I hope I’ve been able to help you understand what it truly takes to become a high achiever, even among the ‘high achievers’ that we know of.

I know that if you’re reading this, you’re probably a student and still very early on in your career.

But trust me when I say, time is going to fly by quicker than you can appreciate it.

One day, you’re going to look back and wonder where all the time has gone, and I sincerely hope that you can look back and be proud of all the hard work you’ve done.

Achieving the high levels of success that you dream of is going to take more than some silly little ‘productivity hacks’ like setting reminders on your calendar, or ‘time slotting’ your day.

It’s going to require a holistic shift in your mindset and the general way that you think.

It’s going to require you to be switch on more often than not, and a deep obsession for being the best that you can be.

If you take a look at the people around you, how many people do you know that go to the gym and tell everybody they’re trying to lose weight, but end up seeing little to no progress in their bodies, even after having signed up to the gym 2 or 3 years ago?

No matter what people say, their true intentions and commitment to something all reflects in their actions and their choices.

I didn’t tell you this earlier, but those people who were getting okay grades in school and were out of shape?

They went to the gym with me every day after school as well.

Or at least, they were supposed to.

When things came up and potential excuses for not going were spotted, giving up the gym session was the first decision they made.

Instead of trying to make things work, they were more than happy to give up their gym sessions.

On top of this, they weren’t prepared to push themselves and properly work hard when they actually WERE in the gym either.

They’d stop right when things got tough, because that’s all they knew.

They didn’t know the value of hard work, as they’d never done it, and never seen the rewards that true, dedicated work can offer you.

The rest of us were fully prepared to shift things around and make the effort to fit the gym session in, even if it meant going at another time to avoid schedule clashes.

For example, if John knew he had a dinner to go to in the evening and wouldn’t have time for a gym session after school, he would wake up early and go in the morning before school to ensure he could get it done.

Some of you might think that is crazy and that John was trying too hard, but that’s honestly the kind of obsession and discipline that it takes to reach the top of wherever you want to go.

The same thing applies for ensuring schoolwork gets done, fitting in shifts for a part time job, keeping time to hang out with friends and enjoy a social life, etc.

You need to genuinely want it, and genuinely have that fire inside of you to always keep switch on.

Time that you waste excessively should make you feel somewhat guilty.

It should feel like you’re doing something wrong when you’re not switched on and making things happen.

There has to be a fundamental difference in the way that you think compared to the way the average person thinks.

Because you’re aiming to be above average.

If you want to be in the top 1%…

You have to do what the other 99% aren’t willing to do.

The 85/15 Rule

This started off as a joke between my best friend (the guy I was going into real estate investing with) and I, but I think there is certainly something that you can take away from it.

Basically, for a school project where I had to make a website, I chose to create an online personal finance website teaching students and teenagers about the core concepts of personal finance of income, saving money, investing, and setting long term financial goals.

To fill up some blank space on a page, I randomly created a pie chart that depicted an 85:15 split between time spent productively and idle (unproductive) time.

Now, ‘productive time’ can refer to anything that is going to add value to your life, or help you/set you up to create more value in some way.

For example, commuting to school can count as productive time, as you don’t really have a choice.

It’s not time wasted.

Sleeping (although not overdoing it) can be seen as productive time, as it helps you maintain mental clarity, focus, and allows you to perform at your best when you’re awake.

Spending time with family can be considered productive time as it’s not going to waste.

In essence, anything that isn’t a waste of time (I know this is subjective and up to discretion) can be considered productive time.

However, just be careful not to spend too much time doing ‘productive things’ that aren’t related to work or directly benefit you in the short or long term.

For example, walking your dog certainly isn’t a waste of time. However, if you’re spending 2 hours a day doing it and foregoing precious study time to improve your grades, than that is certainly something that needs to be fixed.

Same thing goes for other more controversial topics such as spending time with friends and family, eating, cleaning your room, commuting to school, etc.

What if you could be reading books or working on assignments while you’re travelling to and from school?

Just food for thought.

However, something like watching video games on YouTube is definitely not productive time, and instead I would classify as ‘idle time’.

The chart looked like this:

I know, it’s beautiful.

While it was initially a very funny joke between my friend and I, I think there is certainly some truth to it that we can take away.

If you’re always switched on, and you view working hard and making something out of your time as a top priority in your life (don’t lie to yourself!), you’re bound to do well.

Always keep in the back of your head that doing some work for yourself (of any kind) is one of the best ways to spend your time.

If you’re stuck choosing between different ways to spend your time, working on yourself is very rarely a bad choice.

Effective Time Management

I also think this kind of time management is something that can’t really be taught, but instead is something that is up to you as an individual to develop.

Effective time management (because in a nutshell, that’s what being ‘hard working’ is about) is merely a combination of good habits built up over time.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s not about using special study tricks, or tricks like ‘time-blocking’, or using advanced planning apps.

It’s about your mindset.

A creator named Baxate Carter explained it very well:

“I think about time management methods kind of like diets.

The reason most people can’t stick to a diet is because it’s so different to how they operate in their normal life, that there’s so much friction to even stay a part of it.

The same thing goes for you.

If you were generally not that good of a student, and then all of a sudden you try to time-block your day down to the minute.”

If you haven’t already got that strong foundation and adopted the right mindset for achieving success, no amount of little tips and tricks or secret hacks is going to save you.

It all starts in the mind.

Is This an Unhealthy Way of Thinking?

I certainly understand when some people tell me that they think this kind of mindset is unhealthy to adopt.

Always needing to be switched on and working, being overly obsessed with achieving the standards of success that we set for ourselves, and simply not viewing failure as an option.

To either succeed, or die trying.

First and foremost, this kind of thinking can certainly take its toll on your life by damaging relationships with people who don’t agree with you.

People may view you as egotistical, big-headed, self-absorbed, and anything along those lines.

But at the end of the day, you need to put yourself first.

You are the only person in the entire world who will always have your back, no matter how much you want to believe that others will come and save you.

This means that if you really are serious about reaching the top, you’re likely going to have to sacrifice low-quality relationships in your life.

Sometimes, you never realize how much something was weighing you down until you let go.

Other than that, this kind of mindset will only improve your life if you know how to handle it and not let it consume your life.

That should just about conclude this section of the article about helping you develop the winner’s mindset that you need in order to be the best.

Let’s move onto the steps to optimizing your schedule and improving your life.

Step 1: Review Your Daily and Weekly Schedules to See What You’re ACTUALLY Spending Your Time On

The first step to turning your life around, or further improving upon it is to obviously figure out where all your time is going.

Here’s an exercise I want you to do after finishing this article.

I want you to open up your notetaking app on your phone, and for the next 3–7 days (depending on how seriously you want to take this), just jot down the activity you’re doing and allocate it a relevant (and honest/realistic) time slot.

Add any notable feelings as well.

For example:

8:30pm to 9:00pm: watched random TikTok videos. Felt tired and bored, didn’t want to do schoolwork.

Oh, and also record the time you wake up and go to bed each day (the time you actually try to go to sleep, not the time you lie down in bed and go on your phone!).

This whole process won’t take as long as you probably think (I promise!).

And if, during any direct work periods such as when you’re doing homework, you get distracted by doing something like picking up your phone and watching a quick TikTok video or two, just note that down roughly/vaguely as well.

I say this because quite often we might find ourselves saying that we spend ‘x’ amount of time doing something like studying each night, when in reality that ‘x’ amount of time is ridden with countless distractions like picking up our phones and squeezing in a quick handful of YouTube Shorts for a mental break.

I know there are certain study techniques like the ‘Pomodoro technique’ that incorporate concepts like this, but let’s be real, the chances that you’re taking these breaks/distractions on purpose, or keeping to the allotted time restraints is extremely slim.

Say what you want, I find it hard to believe.

All in all, an example of a daily time window breakdown might look something like:

7:30am: wake up.
7:30am to 7:45am: bathroom morning routine.
7:45am to 8:15am: ate breakfast, watched the latest Sidemen’s YouTube video.
8:15am to 8:45am: commuting to school, watched funny TikTok videos and checked social media during the bus ride.
8:45am to 11am: first two school subjects/classes, spent a lot of time on my phone using Snapchat and wasn’t really listening to the teacher.
12pm to 3pm: final three school subjects/classes, spent about an hour browsing online clothing stores and not paying attention. Also picked up my phone multiple times to text my friends.
3pm to 3:30pm: commuting home, did some homework about 50% of the time, and talked to friends for the remainder of the bus ride.
3:35pm to 4pm: afternoon tea and family time.
4pm to 5:15pm: homework and study, took a 30 minute break in between and watched TikTok videos/social media.
5:15pm to 5:30pm: going to the gym.
5:30pm to 6:45pm: working out at the gym. The session took longer than expected because I was talking to friends about the Sidemen’s latest video. The session didn’t end up being very intense.
6:45pm to 7pm: going home.
7pm to 7:15pm: showering.
7:15pm to 7:45pm: dinner. Also was good family time.
7:45pm to 8:30pm: homework and study, took a 20 minute break on my phone.
8:30pm to 10:00pm: watching random YouTube and TikTok videos. Felt tired and bored, didn’t feel like doing schoolwork.
10:00pm to 10:15pm: bathroom nighttime routine.
10:15 to 10:30pm: lay in bed and went on social media.
10:30pm: went to sleep.

I hope you get the rough idea of what this exercise entails.

As you break down your day and the way you spend your time, and really put in the effort to analyze what you’re doing, you might be surprised to find that you’re not exactly as productive as you had originally thought.

And you can lie to yourself all you want, but you’re the only person you’ll be cheating. and lying to.

You’ll only be hurting your future self by lying to yourself now.

You can either choose to continue reading this article and action the steps once you’re done completing this exercise, or, you can come back and continue once you’ve collected the data of how you ACTUALLY spend your time.

Up to you.

Step 2: Be more Selective of How You Spend Your Time; Look for Ways to Reduce Idle Time

Following the exercise I got you to conduct, I’m quite positive that you’re going to have come to the realization that you spend a lot more time doing nothing than you originally thought.

If you have, that’s absolutely fine.

We’ve all been students before, and you can’t really be blamed for enjoying the comforts the come with being a teenager and not an adult.

However, this does signal the need for some changes, and should encourage you to find every way you can to enhance your productivity and ensure that you’re spending the majority of your time doing something that’s actually either going to benefit you now, or later down the line.

Whether you’ve found that you have approximately 1 hour or 5 hour’s worth of downtime each day, there’s always ways that we can improve our schedules and maximize the time we spend productively, within reason.

And learning to do this quite simply just comes down to having something productive that you can do, no matter how much free time you have, and also being able to eliminate your distractions.

Unfortunately, as much as I would love to be able to provide you with some, there aren’t any specific hacks or little tips you can use to increase your productivity and become more selective of the way that you spend your time.

Again, it all comes down to self awareness and you actually being able to recognize (honestly to yourself) when what you’re doing is productive, and when it’s not.

It comes down to your mindset for growth.

For example, in high school, the friend that I was going into real estate investment with tried to be selective with the way he spent his time, but had a couple of key distractions that regularly popped up, preventing him from being very productive in his time at home when had had a choice between what to do.

How do I know this?

Because he was always falling behind on assignments and often had to ask me to help bail him out by doing a portion of his coursework.

When I used to ask him why he so frequently found himself in this situation, it was always the same answer I got every time.

“I don’t know.”

It wasn’t until a Sunday night after we’d both worked at the supermarket from 8am to 9pm, and he asked me to help him out with his coursework to get it done as it was due the following morning, that I had my last straw.

We ended up both sitting on a Discord call and typing away until about 12:45am.

I told him I had to go to bed, and he ended up going for another 45 minutes before going to bed at 1:30am.

After that incident, I decided that I was going to try to help him figure out a way to get everything done on time so that he wouldn’t have this problem again.

Firstly, I asked him to properly keep track of the things he spent his time on while he was on his phone and laptop.

I wanted to see what he was doing, because it clearly wasn’t his coursework.

When he got back to me with a list, I could immediately see that he was spending significantly more time doing unproductive things than he was on his work.

However, when I pointed things out, he’d get a little defensive and rebut the points that I made.

For example, he was a huge rugby fan, and would habitually watch nearly every rugby match, interview, documentary or general content that he found if it related to our national team or the World Cup.

I pointed this out, and initially he seemed to think that being a rugby fan was productive for him, or that spending this time engaging in the rugby content was excused from his downtime because of how much he liked the sport.

All I had to do was ask him the question: “does this help you get your work done?”

Did doing this help him push the success of his career forwards?

I think he quickly realized just how much little distractions like this were eating into his schedule, leaving little to no time for deep, focused work on the actual work that he needed to get done.

While I’m not saying that you can’t be a sports fan if you want to be successful, however you do need to realize that spending too much time watching it or being engrossed in it can waste your time just as much as other things that we’d definitely classify as distractions, such as social media or video games.

You can’t lie to yourself and pretend like the things you do for pleasure aren’t distractions.

The bottom line is, you need to be brutally honest with yourself as to whether the stuff that you’re doing with your time is going to help you push your career forwards in some way.

Because ultimately, that’s what we’re all trying to do here, if you’re reading this article.

Build a strong, successful career.

Here, I’ve created a list of questions that you should be able to answer ‘Yes’ to for at least one of them if what you’re spending your time doing is actually productive.

Is this part of actual workload you need to get done? (School assignments, work work, coursework, side hustle, etc.)
Is this going to realistically teach you to be better at what you do? (Educational YouTube videos about your side hustle, reading a textbook, researching and reading articles, etc.)
Is this going to improve your ability to be successful? (Getting in shape, reading self-improvement books, learning to be good at networking, learning social skills, improving your appearance, etc.)
Is this something you HAVE to do as it helps make you more indirectly productive/successful? (Eating, showering, sleeping, commuting to/from work, etc.)
Is this going to make you more prepared for your career? (Learning about study options at University, learning about different career paths, reading about case studies of people you look up to, etc.)

If there are any questions you think would be relevant here that you think I might’ve missed, please do let me know in the comments.

With this set of questions, you should be able to answer ‘yes’ to at least one of them if what you’re doing is productive.

On the contrary, if you’re answering ‘no’ to every question, then chances are, what you’re doing isn’t all that helpful to you or what you’re trying to achieve.

Following the 85/15 rule, 85% of your time should be spent doing something that you’d be able to answer ‘yes’ to at least one of the questions above for.

Again, this comes back to the idea of needing to see a shift in mindset, and a general shift in your decision making when it comes down to time management.

Step 3: Find a Way to Improve Time Efficiency

Another key factor that determines how much progress you’ll be able to make towards your goals is actually your ability to be efficient with your time.

See, you might think that you’re unable to fit everything you need to do into your schedule.

However, there’s always something that you could do to improve the efficiency of the way you spend your time and get more out of your day.

Why not amplify your productivity and do two ‘productive’ things at once?

For example, while you’re on the bus ride to or from school, perhaps you could try reading your book or consuming some sort of educational content like a video about your side hustle, or some Instagram posts about study tips to help you do schoolwork better.

I know these are the cringe types of things that you might think you’re too cool for, but remember, if you’re trying to do as much as you can, that includes doubling down on as much of the time you have as possible.

I’m not saying to avoid talking to your friends or stop having fun, but do try to look for ways to be more efficient with the way you spend your time, even if it’s only once in a while.

Perhaps, if you’ve got a part time job, you could try watching some educational YouTube or TikTok videos while you’re on your break?

Maybe you bring your laptop to work and do some homework in the staffroom.

These are just ideas, but I hope that they give you a good grasp as to what I’m talking about.

Free time, even if you’re already amidst doing something else ‘productive’, can be utilized for maximum effect.

It can just be all the little things that we could change about our schedules and the way we spend our time, that can very easily lead to huge changes in our performance and output as hard working individuals.

If you’re able to develop the right mindset and are truly able to make the best use of your time and always feel like you’re pushing the limits as to how hard you can really be working, you’re bound to see success in this life.

Step 4: Be Prepared to Take On More Than You Think You Can Handle

The last step that you’ll need to take in order to be able to be the most productive student that you can be is to be prepared to voluntarily put yourself under lots of stress and pressure.

One of the best things that you can do for yourself when you’re young, to not only see success but build up the necessary foundation of skills and mentality to be a winner later in life, is voluntarily put yourself through stress.

I’ll present you one of my favorite quotes that I’ve always lived by:

A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

If you’re never willing to go through hardships or face adversity, you’ll never gain the relevant skills or experience to be able to make it and be successful in the tough world out there.

Sure, your life might feel more comfortable or be more enjoyable, but at the end of the day, eventually you’re going to need to be able to make things happen for yourself.

So, purposely try and fill up your schedule.

You should ideally be so busy that you don’t even have that much time for distractions like social media and video games.

You should be extremely busy playing sports, doing extracurricular activities like leadership councils, working, studying, training at the gym, etc.

So much so that you might find yourself rarely being at home, or still being busy doing remote work of some sort, even when you’re at home.

Here’s an example of what I mean.

Let’s say that you’ve got an assignment due in two days, and your managers at work call you to see whether you’re able to cover a shift after school.

Even though you’d originally been planning to use that time to do some homework and study, you choose to pick up the shift instead, and try to work on your assignment flexibly, around your shift at work.

You do your shift, and this lost time forces you to try and work harder, faster and smarter the next day in order to still be able to get the assignment done on time.

However, in the end, you are still able to give it your all and get everything done on time.

You come to realize that you had far more time than you originally thought you had, and realize that you could’ve easily finished the assignment in time, and still had lots of time left over afterwards.

You realize that had you not picked up that extra shift, you would’ve ended up either allowing yourself too much time to complete the assignment and not doing it effectively, or completing it much earlier than anticipated and giving yourself lots of time to waste.

But because you did, you were able to fully utilize your time, forcing yourself to work harder, but also learn to handle and do more than you originally thought was possible.

Just because your schoolwork is your priority doesn’t mean you can’t do other things, or that you absolutely have to do it first.

Just because you’ve got work in the afternoon on a Saturday or Sunday doesn’t mean you can’t do 4–6 hours of deep, focused work on your school assignments in the morning.

Learn to leave yourself crunched for time and always being under reasonable amounts of pressure, and you’ll literally watch your self development unfold throughout your high school or university years.

Over time, doing this over and over again would eventually teach you to be better at managing more on your plate, ultimately setting you up to be able to do more with your time and achieve more.

Essentially, it’s training yourself to be able to bite off more than you can chew, until eventually, you can can comfortably chew it.

So, if it’s not going to cause you serious harm in the case of failure, start looking for ways to overload your schedule and take on more things than you might think you can handle.

Obviously, if you’re going to miss a birthday event or something important like that, then don’t try anything stupid.

However, if it’s something that you can easily manage like a school assignment that’s not too important, there’s no harm in gradually overloading yourself and training yourself to handle more and more stress.

When you’re young and have all this time available to you, you should be trying to keep as busy as possible, leaving little freedom for idle time.

Obviously, still find time for friends and family because these are the most important things in our lives that offer us love and meaning.

But you do have to strike a balance.

Your schedule should be so packed that you feel like you’re working near your limit and total capacity.

You should more or less feel like you’re sprinting, at a pace that’s fast enough to feel just sustainable, but also fast enough to win you the race and get you across the finish line reasonably quickly without sacrificing everything else (like your health and relationships).

Ideally, I think you should be operating at (you guessed it!) approximately 85% of your total capacity.

Whatever feels fast and intense, but also sustainable if you really put your mind to it.

If you were told that you had to put in 10 hours of deep, focused work every day, but that after a week, you’d be guaranteed a reward of $10 million, you’d do it in a heartbeat right?

Those 70-hour work weeks would be nothing against your strong will to work hard and earn the $10 million reward.

What if I told that it’s the same idea in real life?

If you put in all the effort that you realistically and sustainably can, and sprint towards the finish line, you’re almost guaranteed to find success relatively early on in life.

Now, it’s impossible to say for sure how long it’s going to take, as this can be a matter of months for some people or a matter of years and decades for others.

But to give yourself the best chance possible at winning, you do need to be prepared to sprint.

You need to be ready to hold the high hopes that one day you’ll reach the finish line, because you will.

How long would you be willing to sprint for if the distance was unknown?

To Wrap Things Up

In short, if you haven’t noticed already or if I haven’t said it enough, all of these tips boil down to you being able to take initiative for your own self development and put in the effort to maximize your time usage.

I could sit here and write about all the different tactics you can use, or give you all the advice I possibly could when it comes to helping you become more productive, but that’s simply not how this works.

If you’ve got that fire inside of you, you likely won’t need anything else from me every again.

You won’t need to read any more of my articles, or spend any more time preparing.

You’ll go out and make it happen.

And if you haven’t got that fire burning inside?

You’ll know deep down, and will now have a choice to make.

You can give up and call this whole thing stupid, because that’s what everybody else would do.

Or, you can decide to really try to turn your life around and work for the success that you think you deserve.

That’s simply how import your mentality is when it comes to winning.

Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re probably right…

If I had to take a guess, I’d bet that some of you reading this are inevitably going to feel like all this would be doing far too much, and that anyone who adopts a mindset like this from a young age, is simply a ‘tryhard’.

And I guess you’d be right.

Compared to the average person, this probably is doing a heck of a lot more.

Many of you reading this will likely be scoffing and thinking that this is all stupid, and that there’s no point in putting in so much effort, especially at a young age.

But that’s fully expected.

Because remember, not everyone can be a winner.

It takes a select few people who are really at the top of their game to reach the levels of success we’re all dreaming about here.

Anybody who has been successful and has experience in their respective businesses/careers will know that most people simply aren’t cut out to be high performers.

It demands too much of them.

However, if you’re still relatively young, have no actual need to be trying to do all this, but still found the willpower to genuinely read through this entire article and even completed the activity I asked you to do in step 1, I’m fairly confident that you’ll have what it takes.

Certainly no one has forced you to read through this article, and admittedly I did end up making it a bit longer than I planned to, but if you were able to sit down and read through all this, I think you should be very proud of yourself, as I’d be pretty hard pressed to find 10 people who would willingly read through all this.

If you’re still here and haven’t clicked off, you’re most likely one of those few who have what it takes to make it.

Work hard, be proud of what you achieve, enjoy the process, but never get satisfied.

Keep on aiming for more, but I think your self confidence will only grow increasingly strong over time as you find yourself achieving more and more.

I know that definitely happened to me (in a good way) when I was starting out.

All the best.

P.S: If you enjoyed reading this article and found some value in it, give it some love and share it with a friend!

I’m on a mission to change the lives of as many students and aspiring winners as possible.

And if you’re interested in learning more information about improving your health and fitness, check out my website, Gympulsive.

Summarize