Productivity and Self-discipline

I have just embarked upon my final semester of my batchelor's degree and I am looking to maxmise my productivity. I am aiming to continue into honours next year, so my grades are crucial. As a prerequisite, I need to score at least 70% in all of my units (which I have acheived so far) but  it is very competitive. This semester I am aiming to score at least 80% in every unit (I was close this semester, my grades were 76%, 77%, 78% and 83%).

When it comes to studying, my problem is that when I'm studying I seem to spend a lot of time doing not much. I have discovered two methods of maximising my productivity, so I can get more things done quicker.
The first technique comes from Sarah Wilson. It is called the Pomodoro Technique. What it consists of is engaging yourself in spurts of activity, followed by short rest periods.

What you need to do:
1. Pick a task.
2. Set your timer to 25mins*
3. Work as hard as you can for this 25 minutes, ignoring all distractions and not stopping until the time is up.
4. Rest for 5 minutes.
5. Repeat the cycle 3 more times.
6. Rest for a good half an hour.

Ultimately,you are meant to work through these cycles daily to build up your 'self-discipline muscle'. Although I am yet to complete a full cycle, I have used techniques like this in the past and have found them very sucessful. Hopefully I can utilize this every day.

Confession: whenever I am cooking of late, I imagine that I am on Masterchef. What I mean by this is I set myself a time limit, of how long I want to spend cooking (careful to make a realistic prediction, as I've learned about human's tendency to continually underestimate how long a task will take - thankyou psychology).
Then the first thing I do is to think about what I'm cooking. In order to minimize total cooking time I try to have as many processes as I can handle at once going and to put those things that take awhile on first. I don't know if this actually shortens the process, but it makes me feel more productive.


* Traditionally, this is meant to be a red kitchen tomato timer. You know what I mean, one of these.

But I love this website. From there you can download an application, which is automatically times you for 25 minutes, with 5 minute breaks, in three sessions and takes all of the thinking out of it. I particularly love the way it sits ontop of whatever I'm working on, so I can view my progress.
It also ticks, which is apparently crucial. This is because it instills a sence of urgency, however I think that seeing the countdown is enough.


So have you used this technique?
I will be posting a few other techniques to maximise productivity, but in the meantime, do you have any other techniques to maximise productivity.


images from Masterchef and weheartit.com