Monthly Archives: February 2021

Four tips for motivation in lockdown

Posted on by

By James (Student blogger: BA Politics and International Relations)

Motivation has become an increasingly prevalent issue that I think all students and staff are struggling with at this time of year. When the dark clouds roll in at 4 pm, it seems to be permanently raining, and we are all feeling drowsy and tired with lockdown, of course our motivation will be affected. I know I have struggled with motivation this term. However, I have found a few things that have made me more productive, and maybe they can help you too.

  1. Sleep. Are you tired of hearing about the benefits of sleep? I know I am, but the importance cannot be understated. With the nights drawing in and all of us already feeling tired with lockdown, insufficient sleep will affect our motivation. Who can work when they have no energy?! So, making sure we get a good night’s sleep and getting up at a reasonable time can only help our energy levels and motivate us.
  2. Exercise. Yet again, this is something we all get told to do. Honestly, when I hear the word exercise, I roll my eyes. I do not enjoy it. But, with that being said, exercise has helped me feel more awake through the day and more energised to do work. Even just starting to go for a short 20 minute run a day has helped clear my mind and get in the right mindset for a good few hours of work.
  3. Do not overwork yourself. I know that me and many others are guilty of trying to make up for feeling unproductive by cramming as much as humanly possible into the day. However, I have found out through experience that this only causes tiredness and a lack of motivation over the next few days. So, make sure you don’t cram and wear yourself down all in one day!
  4. Finally, don’t put off work! Honestly, at the start of term, I was very much guilty of this. I would continuously put off work till tomorrow, then the day after, then the day later. This only causes issues as you end up feeling like you are being crushed by the amount of work you must do, which, in turn, affects your mood and motivation to do work. Not putting off work can massively help your mood as you don’t feel behind and this can help you in general with motivation in the future!

I have found that these four key things helped me with mood and productivity during this term; I hope they prove useful!

The importance of work-life balance

Posted on by

By Tsz Yan (Student Blogger: MSc Business Analytics)Balancing Stones

We all know that study is a difficult but important task for most of us. Therefore, some people put all their time into study so as to achieve better academic performance. However, this belief is misleading and may harm our academic performance in the long term. Indeed, having a good work-life balance is a more appropriate way for our study or even life journey.

Firstly, a good work-life balance is able to improve our mental health and therefore academic performance. Whilst studying, we are easily getting to a stage of “burnout” and “stress”. In this stage, your study capability and productivity will decrease because you might feel you can’t understand what you are studying. Therefore, there is a need to take a rest. Try to go outside and have a walk, or chat with your friends/ family members, or even sleep. This will help you to eliminate negative thinking and refresh yourself. As a result, you may “suddenly” understand the knowledge you didn’t understand previously and therefore enhance your study efficiency. To conclude, a good work-life balance is able to improve our mental health and therefore academic performance.

Secondly, a good work-life balance is able to improve our physical health and therefore academic performance. But what does this mean? It means that we need to do exercise regularly. Exercise is really important and can support our study by helping us to perform better academically. Imagine what would happen if you only concentrated on study without doing any exercise, you would have relatively weak physical health. When you have relatively weak physical health, it is easy for you to feel exhausted or even become ill. In this stage, you are not able to focus on your study due to your body status. Therefore, it proves that exercising is needed in your study life in order to enhance your study efficiency and effectiveness. To conclude, a good work-life balance is able to improve our physical health and therefore academic performance.

In fact, we should think more broadly on the benefit of having a good work-life balance. Not only can it improve your academic performance in the short term, but it can also help you build up interpersonal relationships and broaden your horizons. In our studying life, we should go outside to make new friends with different people. We can share a different opinion on any issue and sometimes they may even have some insight on particular things we don’t know. Discussion and communication with friends can help you to broaden your horizons, which may indirectly help you to solve any academic difficulty you face. On the other hand, building up interpersonal relationships can also have benefits not only for your study but also for your life journey in facing any circumstances (such as difficult work situations later in life), since they may provide different angles and insights on these issues and help you face these challenges. To conclude, a good work-life balance is able to improve our study and even life journey.

To sum up, it is essential to maintain a good work-life balance. Firstly, it can help you to improve your mental and physical health so as to improve your academic performance. Secondly, it can help you to build up interpersonal relationships and broaden your horizons so as to improve your academic performance and even life journey. Therefore, I encourage you to have your own work-life balance. Good Luck with your study and life journey!