How did/do you stay focused in college?

When things are slow (for example, the first few weeks of the semester), I take advantage of some of the downtime to look over the syllabus and try to get a few weeks ahead on some of the reading or the assignments that are listed there before things get too hectic. As a result, I'm always anywhere from 2-3 weeks ahead of the rest of the class and have a little extra time to complete major projects like research papers or presentations because I start working on them weeks before the rest of the class even starts thinking about those.