Lifehacker has brought forth an interesting article and link about reducing stress at school. The article in the link is more useful than the Lifehacker article but the comments in the Lifehacker one are quite interesting, hence I’ve given both links.
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I’ve been hearing a lot about goals recently – finding one, keeping one, making it workable and working towards it – but I’ve never really been that interested. I’m only 20 and since I don’t want to be a member of parliament, Prime Minister, partner in a law firm by the time I’m 35 or nobel prize-winner I figured that I was happy to go along with my life as it happens. This doesn’t mean that every now and then it’s not good to get an idea of the “big picture”. Yesterday was one such example. I’ve been bogged down in study recently and I found myself in the city with nothing to do for an afternoon and so decided to head on into the County Court. This is the second tier of the court system in Australia and is where most interesting cases are heard. I spent an afternoon sitting on on court room five hearing a work-cover claim which wasn’t particularly relevant to what I’m studying but just sitting there (in my jeans feeling very under-dressed) and listening to the lawyers give their closing arguments was so useful and inspiring. All those men and women had spend years doing what I’m training to do at the moment. They’ve all struggled through contracts, torts, constitutional law, criminal law, evidence… And it was great to see what the point of everything is.
The point of this blog post is to encourage all of you to go out and spend a day or an afternoon doing what you want to do when you leave uni. Spend a day in a big office, a school or a hospital. Obviously it’s easy for me because the court is open to anyone who can get through the metal detector but what I gained from the experience is immeasurable and I’m planning on going back next time I need to get an idea of the big picture.
Waking up refreshed and alert is a great way to start any day and it really helps to get a day full of classes and study started. I find that the longer it takes to wake up the worse I feel for the next few hours.
I remember reading this article about practising getting up when your alarm goes off during the day so that when you’re asleep and your alarm goes off it’s second nature. At the time it seemed like a good goal but too hard and I put it out of my mind. Recently, however, I’ve discovered an easier way of achieving the same goal. I’m an early riser but my big problem is that I like my bed too much so have a habit of lying in bed drifting in and out of sleep for 20-30 minutes after my alarm goes off. When I got a new alarm clock to replace the one I’ve had for about ten years the sound of the new alarm freaked me out so much that before I knew it I was standing up. Since then I’ve made an effort to get up when my new alarm goes off and now I’m so trained that I do it automatically.
So my tip? Get a new alarm with a significantly different beep to your current one. Make an effort to train yourself into sitting/standing up when it goes off. Soon you’ll be doing it automagically!
If you can’t train yourself into getting up at a new beep try this tip from Bad Language
Alarms. I set my beside alarm for 0600 – and this is the clever psychology – I also set my telephone to ring at 0605 but I put the phone on the other side of the room so that I have to get out of bed to stop it ringing. In the UK, you dial *55*0605# to do this. What happens is this: either I wake up and cancel the alarm or I get up and answer the call to stop it ringing. First, we’re strongly
programmed to answer the phone*. Second, I’m very strongly programmed not to wake my wife up! A ringing phone will do this so I have powerful motivators at work: guilt and fear. This technique works every time but I had previously reserved it for early morning trips to the airport and things like that.
Enjoy!
Was a bit disapointed that no one wanted to write a comment but that’s ok. I’ll just take it to mean that all my readers love what I write and wouldn’t change it for anything! None the less, if you do feel like writing a comment I would really appreciated.
Now, on with the show!
Today I have a favour to ask. I’m about two weeks into my blog and according to the stats I get between zero and fifteen visiters per day with an average of about six. My feed, apparently gets betwen zero and thirty-five views per day with an average of about fifteen. This means that on any one day I probably get at least fifteen visitors to this site.
My request is that everyone who reads my site today (or in the next couple of days, I’m not picky) leave a comment or send me an e-mail (thepotentialblog@gmail.com). I’m really interested in knowing who reads my stuff, if they enjoy it, what they would like to see more of and any suggestions. If you’re feeling really generous and want to do your good deed for the day, tell someone else about this site.
I would really love to hear from you all… I never imagined I would get actual readers! 
About.com’s homework section has a section on how to lighten your backpack this week with lots of useful tips about how to lessen all the stuff you have to carry. Some of the tips are pretty obvious (like carrying a flash disk to keep files and stuff on) but there’s also some interesting stuff – I like this colour-coding tip:
Color code your classes and tools. If your school work is organized, you won’t need to carry everything you own all the time. Color code your work so that you know the days of the week by “colors.” If green is the color for science class, and you have science every Tuesday and Thursday, then you will know to carry your green supplies and folders on those days.
It’s often hard in boring lectures to keep focused. Often focus is required but impossible to produce and other times the lecture is legitimately boring and the topic such that you can drift in and out and not miss anything important. I would like to say that I always pay attention in my lectures but that would be lying and lying on a blog seems like a pretty low thing to do. These are five things I like to do in lectures when I just can’t pay attention. The key to doing other work in lectures is making it look like your actually paying attention (so listening to your MP3 player, reorganising your makeup bag, making phone calls/sending text messages etc. aren’t recommended). Make whatever you do involve a lot of writing and be as subtle as possible.
1. Prepare for tutorials
If you’ve got a tute coming up get out whatever you need to do/read/write and do/read/write it. This can often be subtle AND related to the lecture topic. Very productive activity.
2. Engage in forward planning
This is one of my favourites. Writing to-do lists, writing information in my diary etc. Can be subtle, makes you feel very organised.
3. Do reading
If your textbooks look anything like mine then this is easier said than done on a tiny lecture theatre desk but it’s worth a shot. Hard to do pull off, though, if you’re in a history lecture and taking notes from a giant book on your desk called “Material Chemistry for Engineers”
4. Plan essays
Another thing which is easy to do and subtle. The problem only occurs when you run out of essays to plan.
5. General other studies
If there’s anything else you have to get done try doing it. Got a computer and need to look up the call-numbers of library books? Do it. In fact, this one is a lot easier on a computer – the internet is a wonderful place. But you could also try writing essays or assignments or blog posts (not entirely school-related, I know).
Once you’re in a boring lecture you’re stuck. These tips will help you be productive and at the same time present. They might even make that hour go more quickly.
One of my number one tips for getting work done is setting and using a stopwatch. This is not an original idea – Merlin Mann has advocated the use of the 10+2 x 5 method many times on his blog. The basic premise of this idea is to set a timer and work for ten minutes. After the ten minutes is up (and the timer goes *DING*) set it for two minutes and relax – do something else (Merlin suggests that it’s important to do something completely different to what you were doing originally). When the timer goes *DING* again then repeat, five times. At the end of an hour, you’ve done 50 minutes work!
My personal problem is not that I need a break, just that I have trouble keeping focussed as time slips slowly by. So my tip is to make a list of what you have to do and on anything open-ended (“start philosophy assignment”, “begin reading for chapter 4″) where there’s no clear end draw something that looks like this after it: [00 00] Each 0 is a block of fifteen minutes so draw as many as you need (I like to draw blocks of one hour and then put as many fifteen minutes as I need like this [00 ]). Then you set a timer for fifteen minutes. When it goes off, colour in a little circle. When there’s no circles left, you’ve done all the work you were expecting to do! The circle idea here was borrowed from David Seah and The Printable CEO. If you don’t organise your life in notebooks like I do then his pdf’s are very useful.
So that’s my take on the stopwatch – work in fifteen minute blocks of time and see how quickly time goes. It also works as a tool to beat procrastination – if you set the timer only when you study and then the timer goes off and you’re not studying then it’s a reminder to get back to the books.
Enjoy!
Here’s an article (and a link to another article) to people who think like I do when it comes to Macs and university/college/school (From TUAW). I find the comments in these posts are always useful and give out lots of interesting information. The linked article is also from Digg so expect lots of interesting (and not-so interesting) stuff there!
After much reading of books and online material about how to study these are the five things I wish most I could do and some tips to help in their accomplishment.
1. Not skipping lectures
Just go to lectures. Make them a priority and refuse to not go unless ill.
2. Revising lectures after lectures
Setting aside thirty minutes at the end of each day to review the lecture notes. Putting it on a to-do list – this is something which can’t be delayed to tommorrow!
3. Reading and retaining information without taking notes
This isn’t really something which any tips or tricks which can help but a book on speed-reading from the library would go a long way.
4. Preparing for informal study groups
Again – make it a priority. Treat study groups as importantly as tutorials and prepare appropriately.
5. Ability to keep focussed and not get distracted by friends and coffee
Let the friends who generally are the distractors know that work needs to be done. Agree to have one/two/three coffees per week – whatever is a reasonable number for your situation. When you’ve had that one/two/three you can’t use it as an excuse to not study any more.
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