In cinema and popular culture, student life is often shown as a carefree period: never-ending parties, unforgettable fun and fascinating journeys. In reality, everything is not so perfect. Students have to manage their daily lives, earn money, pass exams and hand in long-term papers and dissertations. And don’t forget about your personal life and hobbies!
Below, we discover tips on how to make your learning process less chaotic and find that very balance that everyone is talking about. Read on!
1. Get A Planner Or Diary
Get into the habit of planning every day, week and month. Without it, you are like a ship without a captain. Who knows where the current will take you? Some like to write down things by hand (this allows you to transfer information from memory to external media and reduce the level of anxiety) or in an app. If you write by hand, use markers of different colors. For example, red is for the most important matters, green is for less complex tasks, and blue is for something that can be rescheduled for later.
Don’t set too many tasks for the day. Your diary should include one key goal (say, creating an essay outline), 2 to 3 medium ones (finish notes, go to a consultation and sign up for yoga classes) and 3 to 4 small ones (go to the grocery store, take the coat to the dry cleaner, etc.).
2. Learn To Delegate
You don’t need a magic wand or a time-turner from the Harry Potter universe to manage several things at once. It is enough to entrust them to an experienced professional. For example, asking “Who can write my paper for me?” leads you to the answer that WritePaper.com will help you complete your assignment at the highest level and submit it on time. Specialists can cope with tasks of any complexity and from any academic field.
As for household chores, you can entrust an evening walk with the dog to a close friend and the purchase of groceries to a delivery service. Instead of going to the cinema (it will take at least 3 hours), you can have a movie night at home by paying for a subscription to one of the online platforms.
3. Change Activities
If you do the same thing for several hours in a row, your brain gets tired very quickly and your productivity drops. Get used to alternating formats. For example, spend 30 minutes reading a textbook, then watch a video lecture, try to repeat what you have already learned out loud, and create a mind map on this topic. Then, take a break, do a little warm-up, or drink a cup of tea. This approach allows you to maintain efficiency and concentration longer.
To get more things done in less time, try relying on a Pomodoro timer. Instead of the recommended 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest, you can go for various options. For example, 45 minutes of work and 10 minutes of rest.
4. Follow A Healthy Routine
You need energy to get everything done, right? If you are used to going to bed early in the morning, running to school without breakfast, and drinking coffee all day, then sooner or later, your body will be exhausted. Make sure you get at least 7-8 hours of sleep and go to bed before midnight.
Start your morning with a protein breakfast. Drink plenty of fresh water, eat well and walk in the fresh air. Sports are especially important: be it dancing, tennis, or going to the gym – you definitely need joy hormones. During exercise, endorphins are produced. They help you disconnect from negative emotions and bring pleasant sensations to your body.
5. Set Deadlines
You can plan your day, complete tasks on time, and watch your favorite TV series with a feeling of accomplishment. Each task must have its own deadline. This is the only way you will learn to assess your capabilities.
Without willpower, nothing will work either. To train it, find a companion. For example, arrange study sessions in a cafe or library, go jogging with friends and cook dinner together. In short, become more disciplined in a group and celebrate small victories.
6. Motivate Yourself
The hardest thing in any business is getting started. This is the mistake that many students make – they put everything off until later, suffering from procrastination.
To motivate yourself to stay active, come up with a reward system. These can be small gifts (a bouquet of flowers, a trip to the cinema, or a massage) or something more serious, such as a trip you have long dreamed of.
7. Eat The Frog
It’s best to complete the most difficult and unpleasant tasks first thing in the morning – then you won’t have to worry about them during the day. This could be anything from calling the landlord to cleaning the bathroom or finishing a thesis.
8. Use Voice Typing
Pay rent. Iron the shirt. Pick up dry cleaning. Buy a gift for a friend’s birthday. When there are hundreds of things to do in your head, it’s easy to forget something. And it’s worse when you forget about promises to loved ones. To prevent this from happening, use voice input. This is life-saving when you’re on the road, standing in a queue, or you’re just not comfortable typing.
9. Use Handy Resources
When you’re running out of time, use existing resources. You will surely find study guides useful. By that, we mean summaries and retellings of literary works, main topics and concepts from different disciplines. Why not open Cliff Notes, which started out as summaries of great novels? Today, you can find there everything from a retelling of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” to statistical research, top-notch methods in psychology and so on.
10. Analyze Information At A Deep Level
This is perhaps the main point. Reading and cramming quickly evaporate from short memory. Therefore, understanding is important. Make short notes on the text conclusions after certain sections and paraphrase what you just read.
Read critically and ask questions if you disagree or don’t understand something. To remember the material, it is also useful to participate in reading groups. These are groups of students who gather to discuss a particular book after reading it. To prepare for such meetings, you need to sketch out several questions for the text.
If you are studying material with a lot of facts (dates, events, important names, formulas, concepts and definitions), use flashcards.
To Wrap It Up
Let’s remember that the brain works in two phases: it actively consumes information and then properly digests it in the background. This is why it is crucial to take breaks and spend weekends relaxing, not cramming. Walks in nature, sports, long sleep and nurturing food – all this will contribute to deep learning and overall productivity.
Studying is a very exciting experience but also a stressful one. Thus, long-term planning is extremely helpful! Wise allocation of resources (your time and energy) will be the main strong skill that will make your experience much more enjoyable.
