Pre-exam doom: 6 ways to get studying (Simone)

As we near the chaos and turmoil and cramming of exam/assignment time (if you didn’t realise this already, I’m really sorry to be the one to say that it is week 11, and looking at that exam and essay timetable is now a necessity. Sigh.) I thought a few handy hints on just getting the job done might just be a bit handy! Whilst I don’t profess to be a very good non-procrastinator (is that a word? Is there such a word, or am I having a terrible mental blank?! You know what I mean, those amazing people who have some study to do and then bam, have it done by the end of the night! I do wonder, though, do these people have facebook? Do they have episodes of Miranda sitting temptingly next to them? Do they get hungry and thirsty and need a cup of tea?! Or perhaps these little side tracks before studying is an Arts student thing. Like, that we (so thought) slightly indie Arts kids have this ever wandering mind that needs to be philosophical and creative about the way in which we begin our homework, and then after all of this very important considering and checking of social media and reading the newspaper – most definitely required in order to be up to date with all of the latest politics and campaigns and what not – we get hungry and dig through the fridge, and THEN we’re like, okay, I guess I better start the study. No? Not just Arts students? – My biomedicine friend quickly hastened to tell me when I was musing this theory with her. ‘I found myself on a Wednesday evening having shots at a bar with these really cool test tube shot glasses!’ she tells me. ‘See! I procrastinate!’ Aww!). Oh, gosh, this is a bit awkward now because my brackets were too long and my previous sentence remains unfinished!!! Umm, okay, so, anyway… what I mean to say is that my own study habits of late do need some work too, some re-vamping if you like! Thus, the advice I offer here is a collection of what I once did , slash I know I should be doing, slash those things that friends and teachers have always so recommended. Add to this list if you do have any good suggestions! We need to collaborate our study wisdom before these difficult times arrive! (What a big paragraph there, eh – hence, I tell you that I am a bit of a procrastinator myself…)

1. De-clutter. Like, that cup on your desk that has some kind of fungi growing at the bottom of it from the Earl Grey tea you had in February? And the random receipts and scraps of paper and pen lids and whatever other crap you still have that you have procrastinated against moving and throwing in the bin? DO IT NOW! A clean working space will – to some point – inspire you to study. Make it look pretty, too. This isn’t procrastination, this is making the homework a little more desirble, so you can actually imagine sitting down there and working on that 2000 word essay. Line up your highlighters in a rainbow pattern and put some little post it notes and stick tabs on the right hand side, and a dictionary and ruler on the left, and open the window a little, and it’ll look pretty enough to actually want to be at your desk! And bob’s your uncle.

2. Buy some stationary!!! I know we’re all broke uni students, but hey, buying stationary gives you a really useful retail high whilst also is very practical. Make the stuff you buy super colourful (colour coodinated if you want to be jazzy about it 😉 ), super pretty (no cheap crappy pens that don’t work the next day), and of course helpful for whatever your study consists of. So then you’ll return to your lovely clean working space with your lovely little new stationary bits and pieces and it will all be slightly more lovely than before. More than that, though, you are thus addressing the possible loss of motivation you could face when your only yellow, your favourite, highlighter fails you whilst going over an important paper.

3. Make a list of all the stuff you have to do, order it with your top priorities (including all of that work you don’t ever want to do, like watching that lecture you missed in week six and didn’t get a chance to catch up), highlight the key bits and the due dates, and write on the side anything you might have to organise for it, like borrowing a particular book from the Baillieu or asking your tutor a question because actually you don’t get it all. Get your fancy little 2013 diary out and write down what you’re going to have done by the end of every week. Then, before you get too intimidated by your massive list, go have a strong coffee and relax for a minute or two. Freaking out makes it all so much more awful, so you have to make sure you give yourself enough time to breathe or else your terror could potentially stop you from actually doing any of the study on your list in the first place. Which would be pretty sad considering you’ll have cleaned your desk and bought all of this pretty stationary.

4. Elimante your normal distractions. And by that I don’t mean watching all of the episodes of your favourite television show so that you’re not distracted by them later! Do things like turn your phone on silent and chuck it to the other side of the room (place gently if it’s an iphone with a screen ready to crack), organise your coffee dates and partyin’ so that it doesn’t interfere with the study schedule you made, and, if it comes to it, turn off the notifications from your social media so that you’ll be too bored by your lack of them to stay on Facebook.

5. Organise something exciting to happen after your last exam or assignment is handed in to give you something to look forward to afterwards. But don’t think too much about your amaaaazing month off for winter … because that might get depressing!

6. Have confidence. In a bit of a may the force be with you kind of way, you have to beelieevee that you actually can do this. You think you’re terrible at essay writing and going to fail that exam and may have a small freakout at some point that requires lots of chocolate and coffee (consider this adding chocolate and coffee to this how to study list), but actually, you are amazing. Yes, you, I’m talking to you right there. Don’t doubt yourself. You got here to this point in your life – you made it to uni, you are motivated enough to get to the bottom of this how to study blog which proves that you actually do mean to do well, you have some vague idea about where you hope to be one day, even if they’re hazy dreams at this point. So – go for it.

 

Good luck, kind people. I hope this blog has been a little bit useful!

Love to you,

xxxx