Study Hacks

The Schedule That Wasn’t There

I had an interesting conversation last week. A friend asked about my schedule for the rest of the semester. “I have it all planned out,” I replied. “I’m going to alternate, back and forth, between working on the big research paper I have to write for my art history seminar and the early parts of my dissertation.”

The friend was quick to challenge me. This schedule, he noted, missed a lot. What about the hundreds of pages of weekly reading for my art history seminar? What about writing and grading problem sets, and prepping and running recitation sections, and student e-mail, and all the rest of the random logistical effluvia emanating from the course I am TA’ing? Or, for that matter, what about all the non-MIT projects I keep brewing? My blog? My freelance articles?

It didn’t occur to me to mention this work. These tasks — numerous as they may be — rarely make an appearance in my scheduling decisions. Why? Because I use a simple but devastatingly effective student trick: the autopilot schedule.

It works as follows…

The Autopilot Schedule

There are two types of work in my world:

• Regularly occurring tasks.
• Non-regularly occurring tasks.

The former typically outweigh the latter and take up the bulk of my time during. These regular tasks are so numerous that I don’t trust myself to schedule them, week by week, in a reasonably efficient and spread out manner. If I made scheduling decisions on the fly for all of my regular work, I would likely:

• Get behind on my regular work, letting it pile up and instigate last-minute scrambles.
• Make very little progress on my important non-regular work. “I’ll start that paper tomorrow, I have all this reading to get done today!”

So here’s what I do instead:

• I assign every regularly occurring task to a specific day in the week. (Sometimes I even assign the task to a specific time.)

For example, here is the schedule I am currently using for non-regular work in my student life:

• Reading for my art history seminar: Friday and Monday. If I don’t end up finishing, then I also use Wednesday before class.
• Develop new problem set problems: Thursday morning before class.
• Build a prep sheet for problem set problems: Thursday morning right after the problems are chosen.
• Prepare for office hours: One and half hours before office hours start on Tuesday. (The process is simplified by the prep sheets put together the preceding Thursday.)
• Work with graders to discuss problems, setup rubrics, and review procedure: Two hour meeting, in conference room, Thursday afternoon.
• Reassemble problem sets, print sample solutions, print graders notes: Tuesday morning before class.
• Write draft of Monday and Wednesday blog posts: Sunday morning.
• Edit and post blog articles: First thing Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
• Reply to student e-mail for class: Right after blog posts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and first thing on Tuesday and Thursdays. Also at end of work day.
• Work on non-MIT writing: Friday, Sunday, “early-evenings” during the week.

I call this an autopilot schedule. It took some tinkering, as it does every semester, to get it to a place that works. But now that it has been fine tuned, I no longer have to expend any scheduling energy to make sure I accomplish all of these regular tasks. They run, in effect, on autopilot — getting done when scheduled.

The Power of Autopilot

Here’s why I love having an autopilot schedule: my scheduling energy can be focused 100% on the large, non-regular tasks in my life. This is why I was able to tell my friend that my schedule for the next two months consists of alternating between my research paper and my thesis. All of that other crap he mentioned is already taken care of. I’m only interested in what happens in the time that remains.

Let me give you two reasons why you should consider placing the regular work in your life onto autopilot:

1. Your regular work gets done consistently and with a minimum of stress.
2. The clarity gained by having this regular work “taken care of” allows you to focus on the important big projects in your student life.

Getting Started

There’s no magic 10-step process here. Identify what work you do every single week and then start fixing it to specific days. You probably won’t get it right at first. The biggest mistake I make each semester when forming my autopilot schedule is to put too much on one day. So play with your work. Slice. Dice. Spread it out. When possible tie work to specific events. (Much of my TA work is attached to the hours immediately before or after classes or office hours.) These triggers make it easier to get started. If a given task is big and scary and ambiguous try to break it down and systemitize it. (A post for another day is the amount of mechanization I’ve applied to my TA responsibilities to minimize any wasted or unnecessary time spent handling papers.)

Once you get to the point where your regular work is getting done with a minimum of thinking, you’ve hit that low-stress sweet spot where you can start turning your attention to the bigger things. Like that terrible massive art history research paper that I have no idea how to start. Still working on a way to automate that too.

Related Posts

• Fixed-Schedule Productivity: How I Accomplish a Large Amount of Work in a Small Number of Work Hours
  
• The Science of Procrastination: Researchers Tackle Willpower and our Ability to Control it
• The Einstein Principle: Accomplish More By Doing Less

A Student’s Worst Enemy

Large, longterm assignments are the bane of undergraduate life. There is no more tempting invitation to procrastination than to see “start work on major, terrible, huge assignment” on your to-do list. So what happens? This particular task gets skipped. Again. And Again. Until, finally, you enter “oh shit!” mode right before the deadline and begin that terrible last minute scramble.

The ESS Method

In this post I describe a simple system that will help you avoid this fate. I call it the ESS method (short for: Early-Small-Soon). It’s a generalization of the strategies that many of the efficient students I’ve interviewed over the years use to defang large assignments.

It can be presented in three rules — one for each piece of the ESS acronym…

RULE #1: Early

Start work on large assignments as early as possible. For projects due at the end of the semester, this might mean right after midterms. Don’t balk. You don’t need to start burning the midnight oil months early. But you do need to start thinking about what lies ahead. It helps if at the beginning of each semester you put a “project start” reminder on your calendar at an appropriate date for each of the major assignments you face. Once you reach that date it’s time to apply the next rules…

RULE #2: Small

Forget the end result. Focus, instead, on the next manageable chunk of work. Try to identify a chunk of work that will require somewhere between 2-6 hours. That is, more than you can whip through in one sitting, but not so much that you can’t find the time over the span of a week or two. At this point, the large assignment means nothing to you. This small chunk is what your world is about. It is what has to be done next.

RULE #3: Soon

Here’s the anti-procrastinatory glue that holds the method together: once you’ve identified your small chunk, set an arbitrary deadline for its completion. Depending on how busy your schedule and how large the chunk, consider time frames that are somewhere between 1 – 3 weeks. Make the deadline non-negotiable. This is when this chunk has to be finished. If it requires a mini-scramble when the deadline looms, then so be it.

The Method in Action

What’s interesting about the ESS method, and why, I think, I see variations of it pop up again and again among high scoring students, is that the arbitrary deadline trick actually works. Even though you know you made it up, we’re wired to respond to the pressure of deadlines, and this spurs you to accomplish that next manageable chunk.

Once you’ve finished one chunk, you plan the next, and your progress continues in this manner. As the deadline gets closer, the arbitrary deadlines tend to become more ambitious, and more gets done, until, well, you’re done with the whole assignment.

Yes, at the end, you still might have some scrambling. But the overall experience is significantly less stressful. Instead of grappling with one monstrous beast of an assignment, you are lightly sparring, week by week, with mini-assignments. By the time the final deadline looms, you have a base of quality work and not that much left to complete.

Related Posts

• Are you effective or just busy? Calculate your churn rate to find out.
• How to schedule your writing like a professional writer.
• 20 simple ways to defuse procrastination.

“Occasionally I end up setting aside one full day where I just lock myself
in my room with some food and grind through it.”
– Jeremy, a straight-A student from Dartmouth

Sometimes it Piles

The Straight-A Method preaches that you should know all of your upcoming obligations and have control over the hours in your day. Combined, these tactics help keep your schedule manageable. But college has a hidden evil streak. Sometimes the Due Date Gods collude to ensure you enter a period of extreme busyness.

When this happens, there is no avoiding the dreaded hard day. Sometimes relaxation and balance has to take a backseat to simply grinding through that work that just absolutely has to get done. (Though, hopefully, even this grinding is being done in focused chunks with sufficient breaks, good food, and in silent, isolated locations on campus.)

How do we best handle these occasional unavoidable pushes? Control them…

The Choice is Yours

When you spy a confluence of due dates lurking on the horizon, plan your hard day(s) in advance. Make sure they aren’t consecutive. If possible, place them near something exciting or relaxing (e.g., the day before a big party, or the day after a long-planned ski trip). Tell everyone you know about your schedule.

The advantages are as follows:

1. By planning the day instead of being forced into it, you feel more energized and in control as oppose to tired and abused.
2. Your advanced planning allows you to spread out the hard days in such a way that minimizes their impact.
3. By telling your friends, you’re more committed to actually following through with the planned work.
4. Once you’ve placed that day on your schedule, you experience stress relief from the knowledge that your workload is about to face a major reduction.

A Tactic of Last Resort

I should make it clear: the best strategy for hard days is to avoid them all together. But when even your most conscientious scheduling fails to keep up with the load, a strategically planned grind fest can make a big difference with a minimal impact on your stress levels.

The Willpower Mystery

We all know the feeling. Some days, you have a project you know you need to work on, but find it impossible to summon the energy needed to close your e-mail and get to work. It seems so simple. Click the “X” in the corner. Open the word processor document. Start typing. But you might as well be considering knocking off a quick triathalon. Your leaden, sluggish, no-motivation mood overwhelms.

On other occasions, however, you welcome the challenge. Time to work? No problem!

What gives?

Dr. Roy Baumeister, a psychologist from Florida State University, has been studying this question for over a decade. In a recent paper, published in the Journal of Current Directions in Psychological Science, Baumeister reviews what his work, and similar studies by others, have revealed about that elusive trait we call self-control.

In this post, I summarize the main findings of this research and conclude with some practical tips for re-aligning your daily habits to leverage the conclusions.

The Strength Model of Self-Control

In a seminal 1994 paper, Baumeister introduced a hypothesis that overturned the established thinking on willpower. He proposed that self-control might depend on a limited resource — a resource that, like a muscle, depletes during repeated, continuous use.

Up to this point, most scientists assumed that self-control was a behavioral mode; a cognitive schema activated under certain conditions and not under others. This approach, for example, might blame fear of failure for your procrastination. The mental loop of failing prevents the juke box of your mind from flipping over to that ever-popular record: “productive work.”

Baumeister disagreed. And he challenged this notion with a simple experiment:

1. Two groups are given a task. The first group gets a task that requires self-control (e.g., memorizing sequences of numbers). The second group gets a neutral task.
2. Next, both groups are given a task that requires self-control. Their performance is measured.

According to the cognitive schema hypothesis, the first group should have the appropriate scheme activated in the first phase and therefore perform better in the second phase. In the experiment, however, the opposite occurred. The group that performed a neutral task in the first phase outperformed the other group in the second phase. This fit Baumeister’s theory. The first group had depleted a resource that the second group did not.

Chocolate, Radishes, and Ego Depletion

Subsequent experiments reinforced this limited resource hypothesis for a variety of traits related to self-control. One of the most interesting studies presented three groups with a plate full of both chocolate and radishes. The first group was told only to eat the radishes. The second group was told to eat chocolate. The third was allowed to eat whatever they wanted.

Next, they were all given an unsolvable task. The radish group gave up after around 8 minutes. The chocolate and no rules groups, on the other hand, both lasted closer to 20 minutes.

The term ego depletion was coined to describe this “state of diminished resources following exertion of self-control.” Further experiments helped rule out other potential contributing factors. Through careful controls, for example, researchers were able to show that these depletion effects did not come simply from subjects getting bored with the task or developing a belief that they were not good at it.

No matter what angle they attacked it from, the same conclusion arose: Self-control is a limited resource. After a while, your tanks will run empty, like a marathoner’s muscles failing in the 20th mile. This cannot be avoided.

Improving Ego Depletion

Even though ego depletion is a reality, you shouldn’t give up hope. Following our athlete analogy, through practice and control over your environment you can still work to reduce and delay these effects to a significant degree.

Here are the strategies that Baumeister, and others, have found to be effective:

1. “Just as exercise can make muscles stronger, there are signs that regular exertions of self-control can improve willpower strength.” Studies show, for example, that introducing a small number of targeted, regular self-control activities in your daily routine — such as “spending money or exercise” — can generate improvements in unrelated areas such as “studying and household chores.”
2. “When people expect to have to exert self-control later, they will curtail current performance more severely.” If you spread work out over more days, you’ll be able to accomplish more in each sitting.
3. “People can exert self-control despite ego depletion if the stakes are high enough.” This is how you are able to get through those all-nighters. However: “there are levels of depletion beyond which people may be unable to control themselves…despite what’s at stake.” Which is why the paper you finish at 4 am sucks something fierce.

In addition, the following activities or behaviors have also been shown to to “moderate or counteract the effects of ego depletion”:

1. Being in a state of positive emotion such as humor.
2. Having a detailed plan before beginning the task.
3. Cash incentives.
4. Replenishing glucose. (Subjects given lemonade did better than those given an identical tasting, sugar-free substitute.)

The Implications for You

The main conclusion I draw from these analyses: you must treat your daily work like a competitive athletic event. Your self-control is a muscle. If you don’t tend to it through rigorous training and careful schedules of use, you’ll perform well below your potential.

The following practical tips can help you re-align your work habits to this reality:

1. Spread out your work. Marathon sessions, spread over many consecutive hours, will prove impossible to sustain unless you have a looming deadline. If you want to avoid falling into a pattern of doing all of your work in panicked all-nighters, start early and work in small chunks.
2. Have a plan. The more specific your plan the easier it will be to finish the task. Never again head off to the library with only the vague intention to “study.”
3. Practice self-control throughout the day. Many students balked at my advice to “make your bed” in my first book. But there was, it seems, a method to my madness. The more daily practice you get with exerting small doses of self-control — from waking up at a regular time to getting to the gym — the easier it will be to summon your willpower during important projects.
4. Eat good meals. You might feel heroic skipping breakfast or pushing through with your work until 9 before grabbing dinner, but the lack of food energy will tank your ability to actually accomplish hard work during these times. Taking 20 minutes to grab an energy-rich meal might save you hours on your total workload.

Conclusion

In the final accounting, the best advice is to pay attention to your own body. Observe when you get tired and when you are able to get a lot done. Experiment with your habits in an effort to increase the time you spend in the latter state. Above all, this research should make one thing clear: the worst strategy is to have none at all. If you work only when you feel like it, or deadlines demand, and just let the day roll past, you’re likely to spend more time than you’d like battling an empty willpower reserve.

(Hat Tip: Tara Parker-Pope’s New York Times Blog Post)

I originally posted this article at the beginning of the fall semester. With New Years looming, it seemed appropriate to revist.

Unfortunately, many people are terrible at making resolutions. They’re too generic. They focus on lofty goals without addressing the details that are relevant to the day-to-day grind. And they’re quick to abort.

Let’s fix this. Here is a simple system for making resolutions that stick:

3 Rules for Making Realistic Resolutions

1. Resolve to Follow a System, Not Achieve a Goal.
   It’s easy to resolve to “lose 10 pounds,” “get a 4.0 G.P.A.,” or finally “write that brilliant, original screenplay about a group of high school kids trying to lose their virginity.” But it’s also easy to quickly learn to ignore something so damn vague. Two weeks later, when you’re busy, and stressed, you’re not going to think about what you might do that day to help get closer to your goal.
   • Instead…Resolve to follow a highly specific system that spells out what you do at what times and on what days. For example, instead of resolving to lose 10 pounds, resolve to go the gym, on Tuesday and Thursdays, in that one hour gap between your 9:00 am and 11:00 am class. Instead of resolving to write a screenplay, resolve to spend three hours, first thing when you wake-up each Saturday, in the same library working on your draft.
   • Because…We all suffer from a chronic shortage of will-power. Systems are easier to follow than ambiguous goals. Why? Systems eliminate the need to think or plan, which represent the real choke point in will power exertion.
2. Establish an Exception Policy.
   Even well-designed systems can be weakened by a momentary lapse. For example, your gym plan works great until a busy period, followed by spring vacation, gets you away from exercise for a few weeks. The momentum is gone. The system is broken. And it’s back to your old habits.
   • Instead…Establish, as part of your system, a specific set of rules for dealing with exceptions. For when busy periods strike, you might, for example, have an abbreviated work-out routine you do one day, early in the week, which you augment with the occasional run on other days. Or, maybe, you have a push-up set you can do in your room, on the road, on vacation, wherever you might happen to be, to keep some fitness alive. Following the screenplay example, you might, during a busy week, require that you instead record at least 10 new scene ideas in a moleskin that you bring with you everywhere.
   • Because…You cannot let your momentum fade. This idea has been recently making its way around the blogging community under the title “Don’t Break the Chain,” in reference to the Seinfeld documentary, The Comedian, in which Jerry talked about the importance of working on his material every single day, without exception. This exact logic is at play here. It doesn’t matter if, during a busy week, the work you do in your system is close to worthless. The fact that you are doing something makes its exponentially easier to continue with the full system the next week.
3. Respect the Rule of Three.
   We can only handle so much scheduling before we seem to lose control over our lives. If, for example, you have eight or nine different systems to manage at one time, something, eventually, will have to give. Too many time conflicts will overwhelm even the ability of your exception policy to keep the momentum alive. Frustration with the lack of free time in your day will lead to mental mutiny. Or, simply, things will just be forgotten.
   • Instead…Limit the number of system you run concurrently. A good rule is to never follow more than three at a time. This covers both your professional and personal life (from big projects to keeping the house clean). There is, however, a loop hole. If you keep up with a simple system for more than six months, and it gets to the point where you don’t even thinking about it — you follow it as regularly as brushing your teeth — you can consider this system ingrained and free up that slot for a new system.
   • Because…Too many systems and everything breaks down. Tackle only three improvements at a time, and the whole project remains tractable. As you move along, some systems will fade away as it becomes clear that they are not producing results. Some will be tweaked or combined with others. Some will finish! And some will be ingrained. With each new season you can introduce new systems to fill the vacated slots, and your march towards self-improvement continues.

New Years is overrated. Fall is the time to make resolutions. For students, this is obvious — Fall denotes the new school year. But it also holds for most other positions in life. Regardless of your business, summer is probably a slow period. When the leaves start to change your work pace picks back up. If you want to make a change, now is the time to get it done.

Unfortunately, many people are terrible at making resolutions. They’re too generic. They focus on lofty goals without addressing the details that are relevant to the day-to-day grind. And they’re quick to abort.

Let’s fix this. Here is a simple system for making resolutions that stick:

3 Rules for Making Realistic Resolutions

1. Resolve to Follow a System, Not Achieve a Goal.
   It’s easy to resolve to “lose 10 pounds,” “get a 4.0 G.P.A.,” or finally “write that brilliant, original screenplay about a group of high school kids trying to lose their virginity.” But it’s also easy to quickly learn to ignore something so damn vague. Two weeks later, when you’re busy, and stressed, you’re not going to think about what you might do that day to help get closer to your goal.
   • Instead…Resolve to follow a highly specific system that spells out what you do at what times and on what days. For example, instead of resolving to lose 10 pounds, resolve to go the gym, on Tuesday and Thursdays, in that one hour gap between your 9:00 am and 11:00 am class. Instead of resolving to write a screenplay, resolve to spend three hours, first thing when you wake-up each Saturday, in the same library working on your draft.
   • Because…We all suffer from a chronic shortage of will-power. Systems are easier to follow than ambiguous goals. Why? Systems eliminate the need to think or plan, which represent the real choke point in will power exertion.
2. Establish an Exception Policy.
   Even well-designed systems can be weakened by a momentary lapse. For example, your gym plan works great until a busy period, followed by spring vacation, gets you away from exercise for a few weeks. The momentum is gone. The system is broken. And it’s back to your old habits.
   • Instead…Establish, as part of your system, a specific set of rules for dealing with exceptions. For when busy periods strike, you might, for example, have an abbreviated work-out routine you do one day, early in the week, which you augment with the occasional run on other days. Or, maybe, you have a push-up set you can do in your room, on the road, on vacation, wherever you might happen to be, to keep some fitness alive. Following the screenplay example, you might, during a busy week, require that you instead record at least 10 new scene ideas in a moleskin that you bring with you everywhere.
   • Because…You cannot let your momentum fade. This idea has been recently making its way around the blogging community under the title “Don’t Break the Chain,” in reference to the Seinfeld documentary, The Comedian, in which Jerry talked about the importance of working on his material every single day, without exception. This exact logic is at play here. It doesn’t matter if, during a busy week, the work you do in your system is close to worthless. The fact that you are doing something makes its exponentially easier to continue with the full system the next week.
3. Respect the Rule of Three.
   We can only handle so much scheduling before we seem to lose control over our lives. If, for example, you have eight or nine different systems to manage at one time, something, eventually, will have to give. Too many time conflicts will overwhelm even the ability of your exception policy to keep the momentum alive. Frustration with the lack of free time in your day will lead to mental mutiny. Or, simply, things will just be forgotten.
   • Instead…Limit the number of system you run concurrently. A good rule is to never follow more than three at a time. This covers both your professional and personal life (from big projects to keeping the house clean). There is, however, a loop hole. If you keep up with a simple system for more than six months, and it gets to the point where you don’t even thinking about it — you follow it as regularly as brushing your teeth — you can consider this system ingrained and free up that slot for a new system.
   • Because…Too many systems and everything breaks down. Tackle only three improvements at a time, and the whole project remains tractable. As you move along, some systems will fade away as it becomes clear that they are not producing results. Some will be tweaked or combined with others. Some will finish! And some will be ingrained. With each new season you can introduce new systems to fill the vacated slots, and your march towards self-improvement continues.

For students, as for most people, procrastination can kill your ability to get things done. Being rested, having a good schedule, and following a daily routine all help. But there are still those days when every fiber in your being is resisting the call to work. In these circumstances, you need to throw everything in your mental arsenal at the delay urge. Here are 20 simple things that can go a long way toward defusing the procrastination monster.

20 Simple Ways to Defuse Procrastination

1. Do something easy but useful to break the barrier and start some momentum.
2. Change your web browser homepage to a blank screen.
3. Disconnect your laptop’s wireless network card.
4. Listen to a song you like to re-energize your mind.
5. Drink a large glass of cold water.
6. Turn to your roommate and blurt out: “I have to get X done, if in 1 hour I still haven’t done this, kick my ass.”
7. Relocate to the quietest nook on campus.
8. Go for a quick, but intense run.
9. Turn off your e-mail auto-notifiers.
10. Identify the first small step in the looming project. Make a deal that if you accomplish this you can go spend 20 minutes doing something you like.
11. Make a list of the remaining blocks of free time in your day. Plan which blocks will be dedicated to work.
12. Run up a flight of stairs, get your heart pumping.
13. Make plans to go drinking later in the day, forcing you to get things done fast or not at all.
14. While web-surfing, print a few articles or blog posts that seem interesting. Bring them with your books to the library to read. Once you finish, you’ll have nothing left to do but start working.
15. Change the settings on your IM program so that it doesn’t automatically open on startup.
16. E-mail a friend to meet you at the library for a work push.
17. Whenever you head out to work tell your someone your plans. Ask him to check up on you later in the day to see if you got things done or if you’re being a lazy ass.
18. Do work that doesn’t require a computer away from a computer.
19. Use a simple activity timer — such as Activity Tracker — to keep a record of how much time you spent doing actual work during the day. The idea you’re being audited can be a powerful motivating force.

What Exercise Habits Reveal About Productivity

I was a varsity athlete through high school and into my first year of college. Because of this, I’m no stranger to the gym or exercise. Indeed, since leaving formal athletic programs, I would be hard-pressed to find a span of two weeks or more, excluding times of sickness or travel, in which I didn’t exercise. Some periods, however, have been more active than others. When I look back through my old gym charts, I note that some months I’m in the gym three times a week, working hard, and making progress. Other times, I limp in maybe once a week, before letting the other days slide. What explains the difference?

After some examination, I concluded that the explanation was as unexpected as it was simple: my snacking habits. During periods in which I am careful to bring in large snacks to eat mid-morning, an hour or so before my normal workout time, I get it done. During periods in which I let coffee fuel me through the morning, I am crippled by an overwhelming urge to procrastinate. “Maybe later,” I tell myself. But rarely follow through.

The Hunger Danger

This lesson, of course, extends beyond exercise. Hunger builds the urge to procrastinate to near unconquerable levels. If you’re hungry, it’s hard to convince yourself to study. And even if you start, it’s hard to convince yourself to study well. It also makes it hard to make a schedule, follow a plan, or stay consistent with your habits and systems. I would go so far as to claim: being hungry during the day is as damaging to your productivity as being drunk or sick. It must be taken seriously! Here a few tips to help you realize this importance:

1. Schedule snacks as top priority events
   Don’t leave these to chance. Put aside the time on your calendar. Know where you are going to go and what your are going to get. Focus on healthy. And make sure you get enough.
2. Have energy boosters handy
   A granola bar or bowl of instant oatmeal should be on hand and ready to go should the slightest tinge of hunger arrive. Bring something to class, in case half way though the lecture you begin to feel your attention crash. Avoid trash food. No pop-tarts. No candy bars. You’re not 11 anymore.
3. Never allow yourself to feel hungry (or full)
   You know you are eating enough if you never reach a state of true hunger. This might take some getting used to. Most young people are used to waiting until their appetite really growls, and then satiating it with a huge meal. Do the opposite. Make your meals smaller, and snack more. You’ll never feel hungry, you’ll never feel stuffed, and your energy will burn much longer.