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Are you struggling with your time management while learning or working online from home? Here are some tips for maintaining control of your time. First and foremost, get up at your normal time and complete your morning routine, including getting dressed and eating breakfast! Learning and working from home can cause you to focus solely on working. Second, set up a workspace away from your bed/bedroom. Third, at the time you would leave, go to your workspace, and prepare for your day.

1. Have a calendar with time slots, electronic or paper, available to plan your day

2. Plan your day including:
a. Work times
b. Activities at specific times, such as class, study, lunch, and breaks
c. Meals
d. Communication with colleagues, family, and friends
e. End of workday
f. Bedtime!

3. Use a timer or electronic reminders to move to the next item on your list.

4. Begin working.

5. End working.

Set aside time for cooking, cleaning, leaving to exercise (even if just in another room), weekend activities, and shopping if needed. Finally, remember to include due dates for assignments. As you plan for your day above, check the learning management system (LMS) used at your school for assignments, activities, and meetings. Add these to your calendar as well. At the starting time of your class or job, begin working.
For those of you working together on projects, there are several ways to communicate easily. Programs such as Zoom, Skype, and social media applications can reduce the perception of distance. Download these easily from the appropriate website onto the computer and phone. Classmates can set up daily review meetings in Zoom. Learning management systems also have Wiki features for discussions.
This may seem obsessive, but as said above people either focus on one thing for a while or shift from one thing to another in minutes without completing any given task. By creating a schedule to work with and using a timer or alarms, one can complete many tasks and feel accomplished at the end of the day. Using the regular schedule will assist in returning to a normal schedule when the isolation period is over. With a schedule in mind, new habits can be formed to assist in a normal schedule later as well.

Anne Montgomery

Today we’ve decided to do something we’ve never done before. We are introducing a new type of content on the Nerdify blog – Nerdify Reviews. From now on, we are going to be reviewing books/podcasts/movies/ etc., that we think can add value to students and are interesting even to the general public. Nerdify Reviews is going to appear on our blog every month, so stay tuned, lot’s of great content coming your way!

For our first “Nerdify Reviews” we’ve chosen a brilliant book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. We think it’s a must-read for pretty much anyone, it’s in our company’s library and it has amazing reader-reviews online.

So, without further due, let’s jump into it. The book describes 7 habits that are aimed to boost your productivity and general motivation to achieve your life goals. These are the habits:

* Be Proactive

Imagine 2 circles in your life – one is the circle of concern (that’s the stuff you are worried about) and within that circle there’s a circle of influence (that’s the stuff you can actually have certain control over – your relationships, work, health, etc).  Being proactive means only be concerned about things YOU HAVE CAN INFLUENCE. That will save you a lot of time you waste worrying about stuff you have zero control over (no point about worrying about whether the Earth will be struck by an asteroid – there’s pretty much nothing you can do about it, mate). So habit number 1 – be proactive.

* Being With An End In Mind

Imagine you are at a funeral. At your funeral (ok, it’s not real, just bare with us for a sec). Ask yourself the following question: “What do I have to say about myself”. Do you want people to say that you were an amazing friend? A great boss? A business leader? But are you actually DOING things that will make people say all of that about you?

In the modern world, it’s really easy to get distracted. Always have the end in mind and CONSTANTLY do a reality check whether you are doing things that get you closer to the end goal?

Learn to say no. This is actually one of the Steve Job’s superpowers – saying no to things that do not get your closer to your goal.

* Put First Things First

This is actually about setting the priorities right. Look, life is FULL of events and opportunities. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to do everything you want. There are only 24 hours in 1 day. And your workday may be full of interruptions. So, learning how to set up your priorities right will go a long way. Answer to yourself “what is the most IMPORTANT thing I have to do right now and how URGENT I have to do that”. Based on that – construct your to-do-list.

* Think Win-Win

This is a very powerful mentality, especially if you want to work in business and be an entrepreneur. Our world is not a zero-sum game (meaning that in order for you to win, someone has to lose). By far in most cases, you can always find a win-win scenario. Usually, people who think that, have integrity, maturity and abundance mentality (meaning they actually believe there’s enough for everybody).

* Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood

This is the holy grail of any negotiations. You have the following “levels of listening” – ignoring, pretending to listen, selective listening and active. Now, you might think that active listening is the maximum level of attention you can dedicate to your counterpart. But it’s not true. The highest level of listening is Empathic listening. This is when you are trying to understand both the content and feelings of your counterpart. It’s as if you are putting yourself in “their shoes”. By doing so you can actually understand what the other person truly feels are really wants. It’s absolutely vital if you want to be a successful negotiator.

* Synergize

This actually is a natural extension of habit 4 and habit 4. When working in a team being able to negotiate and find win-win scenarios is incredibly important. But, being able to unite a few people who have skill sets in different areas – that’s what makes up a very strong team. Always look for opportunities where you can achieve an additional value out of the partnership due to synergize.

* Sharpen The Saw

Imagine a guy cutting a tree with a saw. He is exhausted, he has been working for hours. You approach him and say “Hey, why don’t you take a break and sharpen that saw – you’ll cut the tree down much sooner this way” and the person replies “I don’t have time for this, I have to cut down this tree”. See the problem here?

There’s no point taking on a task if you haven’t prepared for it! Make sure you spend an adequate amount of time PREPARING and planning how you are actually going to execute your task.

This is it, that’s our first review, we hope you liked it. If you want us to review some other books, please let us know in the comment section below 🙂 Nerdify is always trying to provide useful content. Check out our previous story about Secrets behind great success.

We are proud to showcase the essay that won the Nerdy Bot Scholarship Competition.

Essay by Dora M. Donnelly

Artificial intelligence is everywhere in our new millennia. The way we live and work has changed because of the ease of access that is at our fingertips for advanced AI systems. The work in my studies has been no exception to this. I find that typing information into a search engine that rifles through decades of posted material is much easier than having to search a library that is limited.

The most relevant description of Artificial Intelligence is that it makes everything easier. When I am working on an assignment for a class, I have the ability to search the world’s largest database by typing it into my phone, which also implements Artificial Intelligence. It then enters into a search engine that processes my search and then brings the information to me. From that point, I study and apply what I have learned, but not without citing my research through a citation website that uses Artificial Intelligence to automate a well-written citation or bibliography based upon the keywords I entered. Finally, through submitting my assignment, my teacher or professor is able to run it through another programmed service, powered by Artificial Intelligence, that checks for plagiarism so that he or she may know that my work was done without compromise.

I have seen the use of Artificial Intelligence over the last few years advance and I am impressed by the work that can be done through it. We already use it every day for so many things that we do not realize we use it for. Computers and laptops that we use for our work are full of Artificial Intelligence. Whether it is the colors and image displayed on the screen or the input of the keyboard that works just as well as if we labored over those words with ink, any computerized system services its user through Artificial Intelligence.

Also, there is software that students, including myself, have used over the years to contribute to their learning experience. Even elementary schools are using programs that children study and practice skills through Artificial Intelligence. It provides a new way for students to exercise their mind through an updated practice.

An additional way I have benefited from Artificial Intelligence has been online tutoring. There is a database of classes, some of which don’t have a human teacher, that can tutor certain subjects online. I have used this before to grow in my writing skills. It functions by giving the student subjects and when they are done writing them it evaluates automatically the writing skill and level of performance by the student.

In summary, there are many uses of AI in the classroom and to assist with studies. Education in the future will likely rely much more on Artificial Intelligence to promote learning. Through my experience, they all seem to be improving the way we live and learn. Undoubtedly, we will see the use of Artificial Intelligence grow to be even more comprehensive and functional.