Does it really need to be done?

In Scott Scheper's book How to Get Focused, he outlines 'eight things everybody ought to know about concentrating'.

Number four is: Questions that kill procrastination

The brain processes meaning before detail. This is where procrastination stems from. Your boss, professor or co-worker tells you that the task on your desk is important, but your brain doesn’t yet agree. If you push forth anyways, and embark on the task before understanding its meaning, you’ll end up frustrating yourself and wasting time because you may have to do it all over.

For this reason, whenever you find yourself procrastinating, ask yourself the following questions:

Question one: Does this really need to be done?

• If you’re in the business world, term it as, “Will this increase revenue, and/or reduce cost?”
• If you’re in school, ask “Will this impact my grade?” Note: In school, it’s not necessarily about preparing you for the real-world, it’s about assimilating information, regurgitating it on a test, and then hopefully remembering some of it in the future, which gives you more context for the real world. This is why, the question isn’t, “Will this prepare me for the real world?”

I agree with most of his reasoning behind his eight tips to learn good concentration skills, and as a student learned quite a bit about what questions to ask myself when having too much on my plate. To learn more about this chapter or the book on the whole, visit his website at http://howtogetfocused.com

HOWEVER, It was more than upsetting to read about the only question Scott Scheper states as important to ask yourself when you are a student. I do not believe that grades are everything, even if our school system is set up to honor them. Instead, learning real world experiences and knowledge that pertains to real occupations that could be held in the future is more important than remembering information memorized from a text book for a few months and then loosing it. I strongly believe that listening to professors speak is more important than trying to take notes and not understanding them later. Really grasping at least a few topics from a course that will pertain to things one does in a future career is more important than a grade!