3 things law students can do to avoid procrastinating

21 January 2023

Procrastination is the act of postponing a task for a later date, and as students, it is in our nature to delay doing the work we are supposed to be doing for one reason or another. As law school is quite demanding, procrastinating is something all law students should avoid. The main focus of this article is to provide law students with ways in which they can avoid procrastination.

(1) Create a daily schedule

There is nothing better than being organized and knowing your plan for the rest of the day or week. A daily schedule helps in maintaining focus and organization as well as establishing balance. Regular routines and discipline allow you to recognize when things are getting out of control. This enables you to rearrange your schedule and prepare for unexpected events. With a realistic daily roadmap, you always know what you need to do every day and what projects or assignments you need to attend to and when they are due.

By creating a routine beforehand, we save time that would otherwise be used for preparation, planning, and decision-making. Time management is quite crucial in the lives of law students, and by setting a daily schedule, we gradually learn to manage our limited time. Through repetition, we can gradually replace our poor procrastination habits with disciplined work, which will help us throughout our careers.

Setting your own deadlines is also an excellent planning tool. Knowing and setting advanced deadlines can assist you in developing a positive planning habit. You’ll be less likely to put off doing your coursework until the last minute. Students who learn to work with deadlines are more likely to develop and achieve goals. This is because goals without deadlines are simply dreams, as the saying goes.

(2) Stay focused

It is very important to stay focused and set your priorities straight. When given an assignment or any task, you need to fully concentrate on it. Your brain becomes completely concentrated on one task when you avoid distractions and concentrate on one task at a time. This enables you to do that task considerably faster than if you were attempting to finish two or more activities at once. You can do the job far more efficiently and with fewer mistakes if you focus only on it without being distracted. Also, the standard of your task will improve. Being focused has the added benefit of fostering creativity. You will stimulate new concepts relating to the current work.

As students in the 21st century, maintaining long-term concentration can be quite difficult as our attention is frequently diverted by our mobile phones, computer screens, kids, and coworkers, among other things. It might become challenging to maintain long-term attention on any one task. Distractions divert focus from the tasks. Distractions might be internal, like stress, or external, like noise. You may think more clearly and silence your inner thoughts by removing yourself from distractions, which will help you better hear your intuition and genuine ideas. The “fear of missing out” prevents us from closing everything off and focusing only on what we are doing right now. However, all of this should not be relevant in the lives of law students, as studying law requires concentration, and when studying and doing school tasks, it is important to stay in places and spaces where we can be free from distractions in order to finish our work on time. Put away your phone and social media as you work toward your dream of becoming a lawyer, and remind yourself that finishing your studies and all of your academic assignments is the ultimate goal.

Set a timer for 45 minutes if you find it difficult to concentrate and tend to put things off. After that, take a 15-minute break to eat a snack, listen to a song, or talk to someone nearby. Create modest rewards for finishing each phase. Being a law student alone is stressful, but when you stay focused and set out your priorities, it helps reduce the stress.

(3) Remind yourself why you started the journey

A great place to start refocusing on what you are supposed to do is by reminding yourself of some of your own fundamental principles and ideals, and most importantly, the reason why you chose to study law and want to be a lawyer. It helps you let off tension and genuinely recall why you do what you do. It provides you with an opportunity to consider both the past and the present while making plans for the future. When you know why you are doing what you are doing, you should be able to focus on your work and finish it on time.

Conclusion

Procrastination can result in a number of problems, such as poorer test results, lower grades, more course failures, and more course dropouts. When a law student graduates from law school and enters the workforce, procrastination can still create major issues because it continues to affect their ability to finish tasks. It is therefore quite important that, as law students, we stop procrastinating and do our tasks on time in order to avoid detrimental consequences today and in the future.