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1 May 2024

Hit your study goals more efficiently: focus on one task at a time

As the end-of-unit assessment period gets closer, is your study becoming a bit of a juggling act? You may have several assignments due around the same time and be wondering how to manage the competing deadlines.

Many students try to increase their productivity by multi-tasking, which involves working on two (or more) things simultaneously. The underlying logic of multi-tasking is that by tackling several tasks or assignments at once, you’ll get more work done in less time.

So, what’s the problem with this approach? The science tells us it doesn’t work! The human brain can’t truly process two things at once – it can only lead to us repeatedly switching between two tasks and this ‘switch cost’ is lower productivity.

Knowing these limits, here’s some handy tips to help you bust the multi-tasking habit and study more efficiently.

Focus your attention

Be kind to yourself during assessment time 

Help is always available, so please reach out

If you are feeling overwhelmed, the below services are free and available to all Deakin students.



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