Author’s note: as always, I’m writing this as a form of procrastination as my motivation to do what I actually need to do is at very low ebb. Just sayin’.Disclaimers
1. As anyone who’s worked with me knows… I’m not the best qualified to preach on this subject lol. But it was these very failures that recently inspired me to search and try out some of these methods, and I can attest that even my haphazard attempts at them are really helpin’ me out.
2. Maaaan, this sounds serious! Studying shouldn't be a sterile, humourless process where you count and evaluate each minute! But hopefully by managing your time you find more enjoyment and fun in both your study and social life.
My Top 5 1/2 Tips to Effective Time Management!No matter what you’ve done in the past, from today onwards, you have exactly the same amount of time in seconds, minutes, hours, and days as every other single VCE student until exams.
What counts is how you use it.So, how
can you use it most effectively? To avoid that hollow sinking feeling at the end of the day… where you’re like, I could have got literally three times as much done today? Urgh, I hate that feeling. I experience it on a daily basis.
tl;dr:1. Plan overall what you need to do between now and the exam.
2. Plan each individual day.
a. Break things into small tasks.
b. Choose important, effective tasks.
c. Work in distinct purposeful sessions.
d. Work through an ordered to-do list.
3. Cut out useless distractions and time wasters.
4. Get accountable.
6. START.
7. Next post [as yet unwritten]: get motivated.
1. Plan broadly first.Would you hop in the car and drive off… with nowhere to go? Expecting to navigate a few months – even one day – without somewhere to go is ridiculous. You’ll just meander round aimlessly. So, during the holidays, I want you to figure out for each subject:
> where you are currently
> where you want to be by exam time
> and how to get there.
Knowing exactly what you need to get done is the most helpful way to make sure that you’ll use your time wisely between now and the exam.
EXPLANATION
1. Where you are.
Test rigorously and closed-book to make a list of exactly what you already know or can do.
> Content-heavy subjects: go through the study design, and verbally or on paper explain all you know about each dot-point. Identify the areas you know well and those you don’t; record.
> Maths subjects: try a trial exam or two, or flick through the textbook doing a couple of the later questions in each exercise throughout the whole book. Record what you can do and what you can’t (in general terms about your skills, such as ‘finding a general solution’ (in trig)).
> Englishes: write an exam-conditions essay for each essay type; mark it yourself, and get detailed feedback. Thus record your biggest strengths and weaknesses for each essay type.
Be as absolutely precisely SPECIFIC as possible; the more specific you make it, the easier you make it for yourself. (Less tangible/measurable subjects like English are harder).
2. Where you want to be.
List what you need to know or be able to do by the exam. Be very specific. Then highlight the differences between where you are currently, and where you want to be come exam time. If in some area you match your ideal, then you know that you only need to occasionally brush that over. If in some area you’re very far from your ideal, then you’re going to have to dedicate a lot of time to that. If unsure of precisely what you need to know or what a good sample answer looks like, ask for help!
3. How to get there.
So, how do you achieve what you want and get from where you are to where you want to be? Spend a while list out some steps or broad strategies that you’ll use for each skill or area. Again, if unsure of how to study or fix up your issues, ask!
Then go through these and prioritise them based on how important or effective they’ll be. Rank them in order; ask, ‘if I had to sit the exam tomorrow, which of these would it be most important that I did?’
Then count up the number of days you have between now and then. Map out a very rough outline of when you want to achieve each general strategy, skill or section of the content by, prioritised by importance. Set deadlines. Be ambitious, but not ridiculous. Weekly, compare the reality with your broad plan through more testing – if you’re way of track, rethink and replan.
2. Plan each individual day.First, decide your general daily strategy. Will you do 1-2 subjects per day, or some of each per day? It depends on the sort of person you are – either you get bored doing just one thing, or you get more excited and into it the more you do that one thing.
Plan each day one at a time. Revisit that larger-scale plan you built above; pick out the broad steps you prioritised first. Then, list out a bunch of smaller steps you can do to achieve the bigger steps. Organise them into a clear prioritised to-do list, numbered from 1 onwards. Keep a concrete list of all you must do – an unwritten list is an overwhelming nameless monster of fear. Set goals for what you want to achieve that day! Plan the hardest tasks for when you’re most energised, and the easiest when you’re feeling down and tired.
Then: Work on 1 until it’s done. Work on 2 until it’s done. Then work on 3 until it’s done. And so on.
These tips below can help!
1. Break things down into tiny, doable steps.If you have something huge to do, start by breaking it up so that
the first action you have to complete is really small, specific and concrete, and you can start it immediately.Imagine you hate English, and one afternoon you go, ‘I really need to study English now’. What’s my bet that you’ll spend the first 20-100 minutes aimlessly wandering round the house or playing on your phone? Even if/when you finally nerve yourself to sit down, you’ll just flick nervously through your notes doing nothing helpful, until you give up.
So instead, break it down through a thought process like this!
1. I’ll do Text Response.
2. I’ll write an essay. (Here, you already have a step: find an essay topic.)
3. I’ll start writing a plan, and then take a break, and then write just an intro for now.
4. To plan, I’ll start brainstorming by rewriting what the crux of the question is, then asking as many questions as I can about the topic, and then defining key words. Then, I’ll…
Now, you should be able to sit down. Find a topic, and follow the brainstorming steps you listed. Much simpler, right? Tick off each tiny step on a physical checklist; you quickly get on a roll as you can see that you’re achieving something!
2. Choose important, effective actions.Prioritise, so that you don’t just use your time efficiently, but
effectively. Do the most important things first, the ones that will have the greatest impact, the ones that will get you the
furthest on the road to your goals.
Ask: ‘If I had to sit the exam tomorrow, which of these tasks would it be most important that I did?’Examples of what NOT to do are:
> focus on studying the things you already know
> work on something little until you’ve got the big rocks in place (e.g. a real example: a Bio student learning the specific numbers of input/output molecules in the stages of respiration, which are unlikely to ever tested, when they haven't learnt the basic inputs/outputs of photosynthesis yet)
> rote learn paragraphs or just sit and read the textbook
> use ‘slow’ study methods like writing full essays, and then never reading them again
> spend hours studying something that’s come up once in the exam, ever
> waste time fiddling on stuff like fonts
See
this for more hints on studying actively – working ‘smarter, not harder’. And remember – high impact things first.
3. Work in distinct purposeful sessions.Try specific and timed sessions WITH A PURPOSE. I use the free timer app
Focus Booster for Windows; you can set session times of 15-45 min with short breaks between, and the mini timer sits in front of your other windows. Get up for brief exercise/somersaulting/powering up/hydration breaks. After a few short sessions + breaks (I like 4x25 + 5 min breaks between), have a longer break for family meals, social events, social media catchup, etc.
Most importantly, don’t just aimlessly float in like ‘I’m agonna study bruh!’, because you won’t get anywhere. You’ll start flicking between tasks or doing ‘useless’ study (like staring at the page) because you don't have anything specific you've decided to do. Before you set the timer ticking for each session, set
one defined task from your daily priority list.
Write it down. Decide that during that session, you will do X, and nothing but X – then STICK TO IT.
3. Cut out useless distractions and time wasters.This involves two steps:
1. Figure out what’s wasting your time.Try taking a ‘time log’ for a week – in an Excel spreadsheet, record precisely the time you begin each activity and what it is. As soon as you go to change task, get up, flick to fb, whatever – record it in your log as a new entry. Later, fill out how important each activity was, how long you spent on each, and any random comments on how you felt and what slowed you down. Sure, painstakingly logging all day is time consuming, but I always save more time anyway because I’m more reluctant to flick or surf. It often shows you just
how many hours you waste, cumulatively.
More importantly, it shows
what you’re wasting time on. Be it Facebook, video games, addictedly rewatching Friends, checking the fridge a ridiculous number of times for non-existent food, changing the font and colour of your headings, staring at the textbook upsidedown to see if that helps, sewing your notes to the tablecloth, w/e.
So then…
2. …figure out how to slay these time wasters.Give your phone to your mum. Get rid of the TV in your room. Snack beforehand. Whatever helps.
Try a website blocker app (
Cold Turkey,
StayFocusd for Chrome or
LeechBlock for Firefox) to block everything that’ll distract you. Don’t trust your self-control – make it
easier for yourself by blocking so you don’t have a choice.
Schedule 1-2 short catch-up periods per day to unlock your social media. You can still catch up, relax and keep in touch, but save huge amounts of wasted time ‘flicking’ by condensing it in one go. Tell your friends that you’re only on at 4:00-4:30 and 9:00-9:30 – that’ll help you stick to it, plus it’s only fair to let them know.
Figure out the time you’re most productive – for me, that’s the hour or two right at the start of the day and then straight after tea when I get my ‘second wind’. Spend that time sledgehammering the hardest work. Then, designate your least productive times as catch-up slots. Why waste ‘good’ enthusiastic time on ‘easy’ stuff you could do at any time? ‘Slump’ times never achieve anything helpful, anyway; might as well enjoy them.
Other time wasters aren’t so tangible – for instance, imagine I’m writing this post (as indeed I am
). Imagine I’ve blocked enemy sites and given Mum my phone; how else I could waste time?
- Continuously searching for more and yet more sites on productivity and time management
- Searching for the coolest images to put in
- Rejigging font size, colour and formatting
- Starting a second draft of the post in a totally new document without copy-pasting, so I have to keep retyping things
- Writing a huge mess of ideas that take forever to sort, rather than being organised from the start
- Rethinking sentences a hundred times before being willing to write them
These actions aren’t so ‘blockable’ – so be very aware that they’re slowing you down, and try to invent strategies to target each issue.
4. Get accountable.Doing it on your own is hard. Use your family and friends to your advantage!
The Best: pick a friend(s) who’s sharing your subjects, and through texting, organise to do the same things at the same times. e.g. decide to do this essay topic from 4-5, and this company’s Methods Trial 1 from 5:15-6:30. Swap your work to mark, and then go over the feedback; it’s really time effective, valuable (and fun!), because you’ve both just done the work, and you motivate each other to do it quickly.
Second Best: record exactly what you achieve in the day; send it to a friend each day, and get them to send you one. Make a pact that you’ll both be brutally honest – you’ll both say exactly what you did, with no frills, and you’ll both be both harsh and understanding with each other. You should feel guilty when you haven’t got anything to tell them, and you should glow when you give them a massive roll.
Third Best: picture someone you respect watching over your shoulder as you work – think of what they’d be thinking about everything you do, each second. REALLY helpful.
5. Other.These thoughts didn't fit anywhere
If you're curious, they make up the 1/2 of the 5 1/2 tips in the title.
THINK ABOUT THE ROOTS OF YOUR PROCRASTINATION
Why do you procrastinate? Practise being consciously aware of your subconscious thought processes!
I feel the two main ones are:
- fear
- ‘just don’t care’
If you think hard, you might come up with:
‘I’m scared that it’s going to hurt because it’s going to take a long time and I’m really not going to enjoy it’. This should help you to realise that you must do it sometime, so no matter when you do it, you’ll have to face the pain; the longer you put it off, the more your pain. Convince yourself that doing it now will actually reduce the pain!
‘I’m scared I’ll fail – like, if I word hard on this and it still turns out pretty bad, then what does that say about me? I’m gonna feel really stupid and useless!’ Then think about what will happen if you DON’T work. You’re going to fail even worse. Whereas even if it’s not perfect yet when you do the work, you’ll keep getting better and better. Then try motivational success quotes about improving through hard work, etc.
‘I just don’t care. Like does it even matter!?’ Stop studying and spend an hour brainstorming on the reasons why you want to study. Plus overdose on motivational videos.
‘I just feel like… well being lazy.’ Then set small goals. In this 20 minutes I won’t leave this topic. Or, I will put down my phone NOW. Keep doing this, forcing yourself to take these tiny actions, and pushing yourself through just a bit more, and just a bit more…
KILL the 'SCARY' TASKS YOU DREAD EARLY
When you have a topic or task you’re really putting off and always dread when you get to questions about it, then pick the day to really slay it dead, once for all. Just before exams, it can feel like you just don’t have time to build the whole foundation from square 1. So you skim the top: you practise a few random questions on the topic, then move on to the next, and the next. Result: you never master anything, and always have that lingering dread when you re-meet those questions.
The satisfaction of murdering an enemy, rather than it murdering you, is intense.
Try these steps:
1. Dedicate a whole morning (or afternoon or evening) to the topic.
2. Get together all your resources on the topic. Questions, activities, explanations, textbook, notes, resources, Google searches.
3. Then, power up, get enthusiastic, sit down, take a deep breath, and don’t fluff round. Dive straight in. Plough solidly at it with an axe, from square 1.
4. Explore and take notes on all your resources, Wikipedia it in detail, or if it’s maths, do every single relevant question from the textbook.
5. When you don’t get something, don’t leave it to rot; immediately search for answers. Absolutely can’t find an answer? Write it down to deal with, as soon as your session os over.
6. Keep on. You should – surprisingly quickly – have that growing sense that everything is slotting into place. It often only takes a short time of intense, concentrated, organised work on one area until you suddenly feel a master of it and wonder what on earth it was that was scaring you.
7. Live in the glow. It’s good.
If symptoms of fear, dread and confusion persist, seek immediate medical attention (AN or your teacher).
DELEGATE
As everyone knows, delegation is a most important time-management technique. Don't have enough time to study Chem, Methods and English? Delegate Chem to your little sister and Methods to your dad, so you can focus most effectively on English.
Close this tab and any other distracting tabs on your computer. Put your phone in a different room. Decide what to study and get your stuff together. Get up. Do 10 star-jumps on the spot. Take a deep breath. Sit down…
… and START IT. NOW.
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