Welcome everyone, today we are going to talk about a subject which is near and dear to me. For you see, this touches upon something that most people - myself included - have encountered at least once in their life, perhaps many times. I am of course talking about studying, getting work done on time, and staying on top of your responsibilities. Throughout my life I have had many moments where I am excelling in my courses, treading water, or falling behind. Over the years and through some research, I have collected what I believe are the best practices in doing work not just in school but for life in general.
First off, I would stress the importance of organization. Many people might know that there are a collection of assignments and projects due in the near-, medium-, and long-term, but this feeling is inexact and you can often find due-dates catching you by surprise. The mind is a poor replacement for a calendar since there are too many things your brain needs to keep track of in general; the "RAM" section of your brain is busy enough. Not recording dates can cause anxiety since you might always have that lingering feeling that you are missing something. The alternative is worse, feeling that the date is always "away" which is why it keeps surprising you. By keeping all sorts of dates recorded in an easily accessible space, your brain could be freed up and focus more on doing rather than worrying about what needs to get done.
Another important thing that is, unfortunately, one of the first things to get sacrificed is sleep. Sure, there might be situations where you might need a slightly shorter sleep, but repeatedly doing this will cause havoc upon your energy and memory since sleep is an important part in regulating both. One common cause of sleep deprivation is using bright devices on the bed which would cause your brain to believe it is still day which delays the release of sleep hormones. Even with a blue light filter, your brain will still associate your bed with activity rather than winding down. As a wise man once said, the bed should only be used for sleeping... and sleeping.
Something that I learned in SALS that really helped me is knowing when to do things (something I still need a little bit of work on). Our natural instinct is to avoid doing hard things, hence one might be tempted to do what is easy first and leave the un-appetizing things for last. This is actually entirely backward and it will result in you losing steam quickly since it seems that your work keeps getting even more boring and challenging as you go along. In essence, the light at the end of the tunnel seems to get further away every page. In addition, you might choose to "end it for the day" and relegate the hardest thing for tomorrow... only for you to relegate it again tomorrow.
One last thing I would like to touch upon for the night is dividing work into digestible chunks. Touching upon the previous point, if something seems challenging at first, so challenging that you don't even want to do it, it is best to cut it up into pieces. It's kind of like trying to eat a whole burger at once - you're supposed to take bites out of it first. For example, if you have to do a very long complicated paper that takes weeks to do, it would be best to first only think about the topic at hand. Brainstorm ideas, see what you are comfortable with, and explore each idea to see how much you can write about it. In another example, if you need to read a book that seems impossibly large, start off slow. If you tell yourself, "I only need to read two pages a day" your brain will not add so much aversion to it and you will probably just get it over with. Read a page every day until it becomes a habit and then you up the ante to 3 pages, then 4, then 6, and before you know it, you've already read a whole chapter.
There are many things I have not covered here, but the above tips and tricks are a good springboard. Everyone is different and perhaps not all study skills will have the same effect on all people. After you have applied a few of them, see if you can improve the techniques, create new ones, or even research some on your own time. Keep it up, perfect the method, and eventually what once seemed impossible not only becomes possible, but easy.
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