6 Be proactive

• Create an action plan – identify focus and tasks. If you experience high levels of anxiety about mathematical work, it can make it seem larger than it is. Breaking it down into specific tasks is a way to keep it in perspective and help to reduce anxiety.
• Make sure your goals are SMART (specific, measurable, appropriate, realistic, timely). There are different variants of this acronym but all are pointing to the same thing – goals need to be specific and achievable to bring about a positive change.
• ‘Eat the frog’ [3] is promoted as a productivity tool but is particularly good for procrastination. The premise is really quite simple: identify the most important/difficult task for the day and do it first. The result is that you develop a habit of getting that most dreaded task out of the way, and you move on with the rest of your tasks feeling empowered knowing that you have achieved something and everything else seems easy by comparison. In a study context, this translates to doing the maths problems (or your most dreaded maths problem) at the beginning of your study session. In essence, you are ‘eating the frog’ (something which would be undesirable) before doing anything else and you avoid setting off on a path of procrastination.
• Pomodoro technique [4] – the premise of this technique is to use a timer to set an alarm as a reminder to take breaks at regular intervals, e.g.. every 25 minutes. The idea is to stay focused until the alarm sounds, take a break to refresh and then come back and do it again.