When you don’t have much time until the deadline for an essay, you have to act fast. Any type of effective strategy or a life hack in this situation might help a lot, letting you save precious time and also achieve a great result without sacrificing quality. Even if you are not in a hurry, we are sure that you will find the following tips useful, as they might help you learn how to spend less time on homework and become more productive in less time. So, let’s take a look at these great tips and tricks that we have for you.
Always Think It Through
Whenever you start working on any task or assignment, you need to set clear goals and create a plan. It is important because it allows you to get an understanding of what is required from you and also review the task you were given once more.
When you know what result you want to achieve, it is easier to break the task into smaller parts and steps. It is crucial to save as much time as you can, and by having all the next steps planned ahead, it is possible to avoid distractions and pauses.
Create a Rapid Outline
Even a simple outline with a few points written down will help you understand how to structure your essay, thus writing it faster. Many college students think that writing an outline is an unnecessary step that can be skipped in order to save time. But it is an outline that actually allows you to work on your assignment smoothly and quickly.
For example, you might be spending too much time researching what you should write about in the next paragraph or editing the whole thing because you need to rearrange the arguments or facts. When you have an outline, it is something that you can surely avoid. It is especially useful when you need to prove your point with your essay with arguments or examples of various importance – you can plan the structure ahead and make it work in your favor. Sometimes, you might get lost or digressed while writing, which is also something that an outline can help you avoid as it guides you through the topic smoothly.
Use Mind Maps to Get More Ideas
Mind mapping is a technique that helps you organize your thoughts, visualize the connections between various facts, or build a timeline if you need one.
Mind mapping is commonly used during lectures or brainstorms as not only does it help to make the subject or topic easier to comprehend and memorize but also to find the needed or missed associations, categories, related facts, etc.
It is a great tool when you start the essay writing process on a topic that is part of a big and complex concept or field. It can also help you define gaps in your knowledge that you need to fill in. For example, by creating a mind map, you can find out a few missing dates that you need to google or a few facts that need to be checked before being included in an essay.
Try Out Essay Templates
If you find it hard to think through the structure of your future essay or just need to write an essay as quickly as possible, you can take advantage of essay templates.
There are different online sources that provide templates for various types and kinds of essays or other academic papers. Such templates allow you to figure out the right structure for your essay, depending on the type of task. No matter what it is – an opinion essay, a compare and contrast essay, an analytical essay, etc. – you can find the right template and get a great starting point without wasting any time.
Another great way to get a clear understanding of what your essay should be like is to find a few example essays that you can use as a reference. Never copy an essay or any part of it, but rather use it as a guideline.
Record Your Ideas and Thoughts
The fastest way to put various thoughts, ideas, and arguments together is to record them using a recorder on your device. There are even different apps that will allow you to turn your recorded audio into text, and it will save you a lot of time. Find the voice-to-text app for your smartphone or your laptop online and use it for recording your thoughts or lectures.
Recording your thoughts can help you generate more ideas during the essay writing process and make your creative juices flow. When doing so, you can surely end up with messy text, but after some editing, it can turn into a perfectly fine part of a final draft.
Try Reverse Outlining
There is a technique that is called reverse outlining that helps you make the text flow better and more logical. You need to look at your text after you write your first draft and try to outline each paragraph in one or two sentences, wrapping them up. These sentences are meant to summarize each part and create a transition between the paragraphs.
Reverse outlining is called so because it is the opposite process of initial outlining when you develop each bullet point into a more elaborated text. This technique helps you sum up and highlight the critical points of each part of your essay.
Limited Editing While Writing
Saving time while you are in the middle of the essay writing process means not only cutting corners (like using hot keys) but also knowing how to use your time with maximum productivity. One of the many things that might spark arguments is whether you should or shouldn’t edit your text as you go or sparingly. We suggest you do minimum editing in the process and the final polishing when you are finished. We say so because the text you are writing might change a lot in the process; thus, you don’t need to spend much time polishing the first draft before you know you have it all in there.
But still, some editing should be done in the process as you might later lose that idea or understanding of what you were trying to say. That actually happens to many people. So, we suggest you edit a paragraph a bit after you have written it to be sure that it contains your initial ideas in the right form. If you see some spelling or punctuation mistakes, you can also edit it as you go to have less work to be done later.
Take Advantage of Online Tools and Services
Various software and online tools can help you with your essay a lot, as well as save time or improve your productivity. For example, tools like Grammarly or similar ones can help you edit out mistakes or improve the quality of your sentences. Another great tool is EndNote – a tool that helps you organize and manage sources used in your essay.
Another option for you is to use an online essay writing service, FreshEssays.com, as we are here to help you out with your homework. Using our service allows many students in the world to meet their deadlines while also completing other tasks and having an active life. Even if you don’t have much
Take Shorts Breaks
When you have a goal to write an essay fast, you might work with no breaks and as fast as you can. However, at the same time, you need to understand that having breaks is important for the quality of your work and for your focus and brain activity as well.
A short break spent in a productive way will only benefit you in the process of achieving your goals. Breaks allow you to relieve stress, mental and physical tension, eye strain, muscle pain, and also keep concentration high by letting you rest from the mental load. It is proven that long study sessions without any breaks are less productive than shorter ones because a person cannot stay focused for a long time. It means that you will eventually lose focus and concentration while writing your essay and thus waste time.
Use Positive Affirmations and Incentives
Completing any task, especially a challenging one, is something you can reward yourself for daily to improve your productivity and mental state. When you have a lot of things that need to be taken care of and a lot of pressure during the day, you really need to treat yourself with something you like to cheer up.
None of us can function without occasional treats, rewards, and incentives. They very much affect our productivity and help us move on in stressful situations. So, treat yourself to a snack or favorite show after completing another portion of your work. For example, during the break, you can go for a quick walk – that would also make it easier to continue working, even when you need to force yourself.
Positive thinking can really change the game. When you feel depressed and down, surely you will have no motivation or energy to complete challenging tasks or find inspiration for a piece of creative writing. That’s why positive affirmations and self-cheering will only benefit you.