All work and no play is never a good thing. Being that this is a guest post at “Work N Play” and not “Work N More Work”, I thought I’d offer some advice on how you can better do your work so that you still have time to play. I hear many complaints from friends, family, and colleagues that there are not enough hours in the day to accomplish what they want. One reason for this is because we are not very efficient with our time. Other times, we just don’t know how to go about solving problems or how to ask for help.

This post is aimed at helping you make the most out of your limited time. These tips alone are a major reason why I was able to get through college and graduate school. I’m sure that they will prove helpful to you throughout your daily life as they can be applied to almost everything we do, especially blogging! So without further ado, here are the four things to keep in mind to help you learn more efficiently and to increase productivity:

1. Don’t be Afraid to ask Questions!

There’s the classic saying that “There are no dumb questions . . . only questions that are not asked”. Most of the time, when you have what you might think is a “dumb question”, the odds are good that someone else probably has the same question on their mind. In one of my undergraduate classes, there was this fellow who had no shame when it came to asking questions. While some of his questions sounded pretty dumb indeed, the majority of them were questions that I also had lingering in my mind. Of course, I was too embarrassed to ask them myself, so I always gave him my silent gratitude. I could always count on this guy to ask the question that I was too afraid to ask. Unfortunately, not everyone will be as lucky as me. Sometimes, questions that need to be asked are never asked and everyone is worse off.

So don’t be embarrassed and ask whatever question comes to mind; chances are good that someone else will be silently thanking you for asking that question. In addition, you’ll find that your productivity will benefit by asking more questions because you’ll have a better idea on what needs to be done.

2. Collaborate with Others!

Collaboration is a powerful tool that only gets better when more people are involved. I always try to make a conscious effort to collaborate as much as possible on each one of my own projects. Back when I was still in college, I always tried to get my friends to sign up for courses with me. Being able to share ideas, work on homework sets together, and study for tests together made these classes much easier than if I were taking the class solo. By sharing knowledge amongst ourselves, my friends and I were much more efficient and productive as a collective whole. Everyone benefited. If I didn’t know how to do one of the problems in a particular problem set, the chances were good that one of my friends knew how to do it. By developing a network of people you can collaborate with, you can effectively tap into their strengths and potential and use them to your advantage.

If you’re used to working alone, you should really expand your horizons. This day and age, its extremely difficult to do anything by yourself. The sooner you start cooperating and working with others, the sooner your productivity will soar. Learning was meant to be interactive, so make friends and make connections so that everything will be easier in the long run.

3. Be Helpful to others . . . and they will be helpful to you

If you take the time to help others, they will in turn remember that you were helpful and will repay the favor in the future. Building up brownie points and a good reputation make you more liable to be well received among others. This is especially important when you are in need of help. If people remember you as being very helpful, they will reciprocate when you ask for help. In addition, helping others is a great way to reinforce material that you have learned. Remember that the more helpful you are to others, the more helpful they will be to you.

Now, it might seem that taking the time to help others would decrease your productivity. While this may be true in the short run, it is definitely not true in the long run. This is because learning something on your own takes much longer than when someone teaches it to you. For example, if I needed to learn how to use a certain feature in Wordpress, I would ask my friend Daniel to help me out since he’s an expert on using Wordpress. If I tried to do it by myself, it would take a couple of hours. With his help, it would take less than 10 minutes. The morale of the story is that it’s much faster to learn something when someone teaches it to you than when it self taught. The more you help others, the more they will help you. It’s mutually beneficial to both parties!

Also, nobody likes people who leech. These are the people who always ask for help, but never give any help in return. So don’t be a leecher!

4. Don’t spend too much time on any one problem

There are many different ways to go about learning something. The least productive method in my opinion is the “grind it out” approach. In this method, you sit and stare at the problem at hand for hours on end. Most of the time, you waste precious time trying to solve one minor problem when you could be spending that time doing something else. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and the almighty flash bulb will suddenly light up. But most of the time, you’ll sit in wallow in extreme frustration. I find that taking some time away from the problem and returning to it later can prove quit beneficial. Doing this gives you a fresh outlook on the problem, allowing you to see it differently than before.

These are my tips for for better learning and increased productivity, and I’m sure many of you have your own that you would like to share! What are some of your own tips?

If you like what turtie writes please visit blinkdagger where he can be found blogging about many things. Also if you are a Matlab student or junky make sure to check out the tutorial section.

Tags: Productivity //