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“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”

-  Jhumpa Lahiri

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GOOD STUDYING VS BAD STUDYING

GOOD STUDYING

Use recall. When you look at a passage and try to study it,  look away and recall the main ideas. Try recalling concepts when you are walking to class or in a different room from where you originally learned it. An ability to recall—to generate the ideas from inside yourself—is one of the key indicators of good learning.

Test yourself. On everything. All the time. Flashcards are your best friend. Use quizlet if you don’t want to hand-make flashcards. Get somebody to test you on your notes.

Space your repetition. Spread out your learning in any subject a little every day, just like an athlete. Don’t sit and study one subject for 2 hours, do half an hour every day.

Take breaks. It is common to be unable to solve problems or figure out concepts in math or science the first time you encounter them. This is why a little study every day is much better than a lot of studying all at once. When you get frustrated, take a break so that another part of your mind can take over and work in the background. You need breaks in order for your brain to retain the information. Try the Pomodoro method if you have trouble timing breaks!

Use simple analogies. Whenever you are struggling with a concept, think to yourself, How can I explain this so that a ten-year-old could understand it? Using an analogy really helps. Say it out loud, like you’re teaching it, whether it’s to an imaginary class or your sister who couldn’t care less.  The additional effort of teaching out loud allows you to more deeply encode.

Focus. Turn off your phone / iPad / any distractions and clear your desk of everything you do not need. Use apps like Forest if you can’t stay off them!

Do the hardest thing earliest in the day, when you’re wide awake and less likely to push it aside.

BAD STUDYING

Avoid these techniques—they can waste your time even while they fool you into thinking you’re learning!

Passive rereading—sitting passively and running your eyes back over a page. This is a waste of time, frankly, and doesn’t do anything to help information pass into your brain without recall.

Over-highlighting. Colouring a passage of text in highlighter isn’t helpful at all. It’s good for flagging up key points to trigger concepts and information, but make sure what you highlight goes in.

Waiting until the last minute to study. DON’T CRAM!!!

Doing what you know. This isn’t studying! This is like learning how to juggle but only throwing one ball. 

Neglecting the textbook. Would you dive into a pool before you knew how to swim? The textbook is your swimming instructor—it guides you toward the answers. 

Not asking your teachers for help. They are used to lost students coming in for guidance—it’s their job to help you. 

Not getting enough sleep. Your brain practices and repeats whatever you put in mind before you go to sleep, as well as retaining information and repairing itself. Prolonged fatigue allows toxins to build up in the brain that disrupts the neural connections you need to think quickly and well. 

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December 15, 2019

Well, my last ever fall semester of undergraduate is done now and we’re officially in winter break.  I don’t think I’ve actually given myself enough time or put in enough effort for that to sink in, that next August I won’t be going back to college.

It’s a weird thought to have at 3am, but I think it’s a necessary one.  T-minus 16 days until the new decade is upon us!

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20 lessons for 2020

2019 has been a pretty challenging year for me. I started it being scared and anxious about everything, and I ended it single, with new career goals and surrounded by my best friends. Here are 20 lessons (100% tested and approved) that I learned along the way!

1. People only show their best sides to you but you would be amazed by how many people share the same feelings as you

2. If you feel like you can’t be yourself around a certain group of people, then you’re hanging out with the wrong group

3. Notice people who make you feel energized and happy VS people who drain all your energy. It’ll change your life.

4. You don’t need to justify yourself when you say « no » to something

5. However, you should say yes more often to spontaneous proposals and experiences

6. Honesty is a sign of respect

7. If you don’t give your 100% to something then you’ll be less likely to get that 100% back

8. Choose flaws over qualities. Your dream job also consists in not-so-dreamy parts, and this is what you should consider when choosing your career. The same applies with friends/lovers.

9. The person you sit in front of at the library can become one of your best friends (true story for me)

10. 99% of the scenarios you imagine in your head will never happen

11. Changing starts within YOUR thoughts and how you react to them.

12. Just because you’re offended it doesn’t mean that you’re right

13. Keep a critical eye to everything you hear/see.

14. Being vulnerable is a sign of strenght and not a sign of weakness

15. You can cope with a lot more than you think

16. Your life can totally change in a year and you can be a whole different person only if you’re willing too

17. Cherish what you already have in your life, happiness lies in gratitude

18. Wanting to be perfect for others will only make you seem a boring and hypocrite person

19. The habits you adopt now will define the person you’ll be in the future

20. Be curious. Read books, listen to podcasts, travel (even in your country), and talk to new people

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Useful Websites for Students

I put together a post containing Awesome Sites and Links for Writers, which is also pretty useful for school work too. Some of these sites I’ve discovered on my own in pursuit of knowledge and other times by friends. Many of them I wish that I knew about back when I was school. Most of the websites listed below are geared towards college students, but a few are aimed at high school students and primary students. So there is a bit of everything for everyone.

Homework Help & Studying

Cheatography – A site that collects cheat sheets that condense information on all kinds of topics, which can be helpful for building study guides.

Study Hacks Blog – Is a college blog that contains a lot of study advice and studying strategies that actually work.

Quizlet – Provides free tools for students, teachers, and learners of all ages to make flashcards to help them study any subject. For many topics, someone has already created a list of flashcards that you can flip through. Generally they might not be exactly what you need, but they will be close enough. You can even print them off.

StudyBlue – Is an online studying platform for high school and college students. The website allows users to upload class study materials, create electronic flashcards to study and share with others, and practice quizzes. StudyBlue allows students to store their notes in the cloud and connect with other students studying the same subjects.

Koofers – This all-in-one website not only helps college students study by providing access to flash cards and practice exams. It also gives you information on professor ratings, helps you generate the ideal class schedule, and posts job/internship openings.

Shmoop – Connects 13 million students and teachers with study guides, practice tests, an essay lab, informational videos, and career advice.

Mathway – Is a free math problem solver from basic algebra to complex calculus with step-by-step explanations.

S.O.S. Mathematics – Is a free resource for math review material from Algebra to Differential Equations. Get help with your homework, refresh your memory, prepare for a test, and so on.

Math.com – Contains explanations on almost all topics in mathematics from basic math to algebra, geometry and beyond. If you need review, more practice or deeper understanding of specific topics, this is the place to look. There are many useful tools such as calculators, study tips, etc. Even games that require some logical thinking.

Symbolab – Performs operations, solves equations, computes derivatives and integrals and more. It even come with a symbolic interface.

Number Empire – Is a collection of math calculators that can help you solve equations, compute derivatives and integrals, matrix arithmetic, statistics, and more.

MathPapa – Helps you learn algebra step-by-step. You can also plug non-algebraic equations into Mathpapa and use it as a calculator. It will show you the final answer and step-by-step instructions how the calculations work. There’s also a mobile app of it for Android and iOS devices.

Citation Machine – Helps students and professional researchers to properly credit the information that they use.

CK-12 Foundation – Is a California-based non-profit organization whose stated mission is to reduce the cost of, and increase access to, K-12 education in the United States and worldwide. They provide a library of free online textbooks, videos, exercises, flashcards, and real world applications for over 5000 concepts from arithmetic to science to history and so on.

Course Hero – Is a crowd-sourced online learning platform for students to access study resources like course materials, flashcards, educational videos and tutors. Its educator portal is a micro publishing platform for educators to distribute their educational resources. Course Hero collects and organizes study materials like practice exams, problem sets, syllabus, flashcards, class notes and study guides from users who upload. Users either buy a subscription or upload documents in order to receive membership and access website material.

HippoCampus – Is a free, core academic web site that delivers rich multimedia content: videos, animations, and simulations on general education subjects to middle-school and high-school students to help with their homework and studies.

Slader.com – Offers millions of step-by-step solutions to all the questions in the most popular textbooks in middle school, high school, and college. Math homework answers, Science homework answers, Spanish, History, Economics, and more.

Free Online Courses

University of Reddit – Is a community project that aims to focus on the teaching, learning, and sharing of knowledge and experience among its users. There are over 100 courses available: Art, Computer Science, Fun and Games, General Studies, Language, Mathematics and Statistics, Music, Philosophy, Science, Social Sciences, and Technology. Within each category are many, many sub-categories, that focus on particular areas of the genre.

edX – Is a massive open online course (MOOC) provider. It hosts online university-level courses in a wide range of disciplines to a worldwide student body, including some courses at no charge. It also conducts research into learning based on how people use its platform. Unlike other MOOC, edX is a nonprofit organization and runs on the Open edX open-source software.

Khan Academy – Is a non-profit educational organization with a goal of creating an accessible place for people to be educated. The organization produces short lectures in the form of YouTube videos. Its website also includes supplementary practice exercises and tools for educators.

MIT OpenCourseWare – Is a web-based publication that contains thousands of Massachusetts Institute of Technology course content. It is a free and ranges from the introductory to the most advanced graduate level. Each OCW course includes a syllabus, some instructional material (such as lecture notes or a reading list), and some learning activities (such as assignments or exams). Many courses also have complete video lectures, free online textbooks, and faculty teaching insights. While some OCW content is custom-created for online use, most of it comes straight from the MIT classroom.

Udacity – Is a for-profit educational organization that offers massive open online courses (MOOCs) for free and Nanodegree programs.

Saylor Academy – Is a nonprofit initiative working since 2008 to offer free and open online courses to all who want to learn. They offer nearly 100 full-length courses at the college and professional levels, each of which is available to access at your pace and on your schedule.

Alison – Is a website founded with a noble goal: to enable anyone to receive free education of high quality. All you need is a will to learn new things and they will provide you with all necessary tools.  

Lynda – Is an online education company offering thousands of video courses in software, technology, creative, and business skills. The ones in blue are available to watch for free, so you don’t need a membership for them. However, others in grey require a lynda.com library subscription for access. But there is a way to get it for free and that’s by checking if the courses are available online through your local library’s website. There is a growing number of libraries that are providing their members free access to Lynda.com courses.

Udemy – Is an online learning platform. It is aimed at professional adults who want to add new skills to their resumes, or explore their passions. Unlike academic MOOC programs driven by traditional collegiate coursework, Udemy provides a platform for experts of any kind to create courses which can be offered to the public, either at no charge or for a tuition fee.

Codecademy – Is an online interactive platform that offers free coding classes in 12 different programming languages including Python, Java, PHP, JavaScript (jQuery, AngularJS, React.js), Ruby, SQL, and Sass, as well as markup languages HTML and CSS

Math Planet – Offers courses in high school math such as Pre-algebra, Algebra 1, Algebra 2 and Geometry for free. They also have practice tests for the SAT and ACT.

AcademicEarth – Has a collection of free online college courses from the world’s top universities. They also make sure that there is something for everyone: whether you want to explore a new topic or advance in your current field, they bring it to you for free.

Harvard University - Harvard Open Learning Initiative – Offers a series of free or low-cost courses. In addition, you can also browse Harvard University’s Digital Learning Portal, which features online learning content from across the University, both free and fee-based options.

Open Culture – Has 1,200 free online courses from the world’s leading universities: Stanford, Yale, MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford and more. You can download these audio & video courses (often from iTunes, YouTube, or university web sites) straight to your computer or mp3 player.

Open2Study – Is an initiative of Open Universities Australia that brings you the best in online education with their four-week, introductory subjects. Open2Study provides free, specialized short courses, entirely online, across the world, in a range of subject areas. When you successfully complete your course you’ll get a free Certificate of Achievement, which you can use to demonstrate your interest in learning about a certain area.

Information & Research

Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine – Introduces a fundamentally new way to get knowledge and answers; not by searching the web, but by doing dynamic computations based on a vast collection of built-in data, algorithms, and methods. In a way it’s basically a little bit of everything; a search engine, an encyclopedia, and a calculator that can answer nearly any questions you have.

Virtual Learning Resources Center (VLRC) – Is an online index hosting thousands of scholarly websites, all of which are selected by teachers and librarians from around the globe. The site provides students and teachers with current, valid information for school and university academic projects using an index gathered from research portals, universities and library internet subject guides recommended by teachers and librarians.

Stack Exchange – Is a network of question-and-answer website on topics in varied fields, each branch of the site covers a specific topic, where questions, answers, and users are subject to a reputation award process.

Microsoft Academic – Operated by the company that brings you Word, PowerPoint and Excel, it is a reliable, comprehensive research tool. The search engine pulls content from over 120 million publications, including scientific papers, conferences and journals. You can search directly by topic, or you can search by an extensive list of fields of study. For example, if you’re interested in computer science, you can filter through topics such as artificial intelligence, computer security, data science, programming languages and more.

Refseek – Is a web search engine for students and researchers that aims to make academic information easily accessible to everyone. RefSeek searches more than one billion documents, including web pages, books, encyclopedias, journals, and newspapers. It also has an option to search documents directly; providing easy access to PDFs of academic papers. 

WorldWideScience – Is operated by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, a branch of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy. The site utilizes databases from over 70 countries. When users type a query, it hits databases from all over the world and will display both English and translated results from related journals and academic resources.

Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) – Is a great tool for academic research with more than 1.3 million bibliographic records of articles and online materials. ERIC provides access to an extensive body of education-related literature including journal articles, books, research syntheses, conference papers, technical reports, policy papers and more.

iSEEK – Is a targeted search engine that compiles hundreds of thousands of authoritative resources from university, government, and established noncommercial providers. It provides time-saving intelligent search and a personal Web-based library to help you locate the most relevant results immediately and find them quickly later.

ResearchGate – Is a unique social networking site built by scientists, for scientists. Over 11 million researchers submit their work, which totals more than 100 million publications, on the site for anyone to access. You can search by publication, data and author, or you can even ask the researchers questions. Though it’s not a search engine that pulls from external sources, ResearchGate’s own collection of publications provides a hearty selection for any inquisitive scholar.

Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) – Prides itself as being “one of the world’s most voluminous search engines especially for academic web resources.” Utilizing 4,000 sources, the site contains results from over 100 million documents. The advanced search option allows users to narrow their research, so whether you’re looking for a book, review, lecture, video or thesis, BASE can provide the specific format you need.

Infotopia – Describes itself as a “Google-alternative safe search engine”. The academic search engine pulls from results that have been curated by librarians, teachers and other educational workers. The search feature allows users to select a category, which ranges from art to health to science and technology, and then see a list of internal and external resources pertaining to the topic. So if you don’t find what you’re looking for within the pages of Infotopia, you will probably find it in one of its many suggested sites.

PubMed Central – Is operated by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. The database contains more than 3 million full-text journal articles. It’s similar to PubMed Health, which is specifically for health-related research and studies, and includes citations and abstracts to more than 26 million articles.

Lexis Web – Is your go-to for any law-related inquiries you may have. The results are drawn from legal sites, which can be filtered by criteria such as news, blog, government and commercial. Users can also filter results by jurisdiction, practice area, source and file format. 

CollegeMajors101 – Wondering what you can do with a degree in biology or dance? College Majors 101 offers lots of information about what you can do with dozens of majors, as well as what you can expect academically if you pursue these majors.

College Insight – Is the brainchild of the Institute for College Access and Success. It gathers detailed information on thousands of colleges. You can find statistics for any school on such topics as college affordability, graduation rates, and college diversity, including the racial and ethnic breakdown of students and professors. 

Fastweb – Is an online resource in finding scholarships to help you pay for school. All you have to do is make a profile and you’ll have access to their database of more than 1.5 million scholarships.

Books & Shopping (Student Discounts & Deals)

Online Research Library: Questia – Is an online commercial digital library of books and articles that has an academic orientation, with a particular emphasis on books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences. Questia’s library has over 5,000 public domain, classic and rare books that you can read online absolutely free.

The Book Pond – Is an independent online selling service for UK university students and graduates. They allow you to sell your old academic textbooks or buy the ones you need from other students who don’t need them anymore.

Chegg – Is an American online textbook rental company that specializes in online textbook rentals (both in physical and digital formats), homework help, online tutoring, scholarships and internship matching.

Open Book Project – Was made specifically for the academic community. Students and teachers can find free textbooks and other open-source education materials.

Bookboon – Is a source for free textbooks in PDF form that focus primarily on accounting, economics, engineering, IT, marketing, and management. The books are modest in size, most run from 50 to 100 pages.

Boundless – Offers openly licensed, high-quality, customizable digital courseware at a fraction of the cost of traditional textbooks.

Project Gutenberg – Offers more than 43,000 e-books, completely free. Comparative literature students taking only Jane Austen at Binghamton University, for example, can find every book on their syllabus via Project Gutenberg. Titles available on the site span categories such as archaeology, horticulture, microbiology and World War I. Copyrights are expired on all of the titles available for download via Project Gutenberg, so students studying history or classic literature may have more luck than those taking courses in other subjects.

Open Textbook Library – Contains textbooks that have been funded, published, and licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. These books have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost. All textbooks are either used at multiple higher education institutions; or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society, or professional organization.

Internet Sacred Text Archive – Is a freely available archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, where possible, in the original language.

StudentRate – A site that allows college students to take full advantage of their school ID to get student deals and discounts on clothes, travel, textbooks, electronics, and lots of other things.

UNiDAYS – Is totally free to join, and used by over 4.3 million students every day. Signing up provides discounts on fashion, technology, music, stationary, food and more. It’s super useful when online shopping, and useful offline too.

Save the Student – Calls itself the number one student money website in the UK. It gives budgeting advice on how to make money and how to save money. Gives you checklists when looking for a student house, how to pay bills, what to take to university.

Student Hut – Is an online resource that helps prospective students find highly rated university courses, student offers & freebies, jobs and guides.

Student Beans – Is a popular UK hub where students could find useful stuff like offers and discounts on everything from travel, to fashion, to health and beauty and gadgets. And what students can get for free, from Uber vouchers to free drinks and trips to America. It has a dedicated jobs section, advertising part time jobs, internships and grad schemes.

Groupon – In college, every dollar counts so it helps to have Groupon when you can’t find any Student discounts and deals going on. When you and your friends are looking to try out a new restaurant, or if you’re looking for some alternative Friday night plans, make sure you check this first. It offers deals on everything from dining out to shopping products based on your location.

Amazon Student – With a student email (an valid .edu e-mail address), you get six months of Amazon Prime for free! Which means free two-day shipping, cheap textbook rentals, and discounts on anything from electronics to clothing. You’ll also earn $5 for each friend you refer, and they’ll get $5 credit as well. When the free trial ends, students will have to pay a fee of $49 per year, which is 50% off the cost of Prime membership. The student fee includes extra perks such as unlimited instant streaming of movies, TV shows and music. If you don’t want that, just make sure to cancel before your free trial ends.

CollegeBudget – Is like Groupon for college students. There’s all sorts of discounts on clothing, electronics, activities, and more. 

Apps & Tools

Sleepyti.me – Uses the sciences of REM cycles to calculate the optimal time you should go to bed in order to feel well-rested, especially when you have to be up at a certain hour.

Alarmy – This app ensures that you get up in the morning for work or school by being very annoying. You set it up by registering a photo of an area or room in your house. Then once the alarm is set, the ONLY way to make it stop ringing is to get out of bed and go take a photo of the registered area. There are other options as well, such as doing a math problem in order to turn the alarm off or shaking it for a certain amount. It’s available on Android and iOS.

Ginger Software – Contains a free online spelling and grammar checker that will correct any mistakes you make. They also creates apps and products that help people communicate more productively and efficiently on their mobile devices and desktop computers.

Plagtracker – Is a plagiarism checker that scans content to determine if any part of your essay has been plagiarized. Teachers aren’t the only ones that use this, students, website owners, and anyone else interested in protecting their writing do.

Hemingway Editor – Is a proofreading tool that helps you to see and fix potential problem areas in your writing. It color codes each potential error type, so you can address them one at a time. It’s a standalone program that costs $20 US, and you can download it to a PC or a Mac computer. But there is also a free online version of it that you can try.

Student Loan Calculator – Was made by the College Board to make it easier for college students to stay on top for their student loan payments.

Desmos – Is a free online grapher and scientific calculator. 

Mint – Is a free money manager and financial tracker app from the makers of TurboTax that does it all. It’s available on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch as well as on Android.

My Study Life – Is a free app that lets you coordinate your calendar and to-do list. It is designed especially for schools, a planner that can be customized for rotating schedules and long-term assignments. You can even set up reminders about your homework due dates. The app is available on iPhone, Android, Windows 8, Windows Phone and the web. 

Habitica – Is a free self-improvement web application with game mechanics overlaid to help the player keep track of and remain motivated to achieve their goals. They do so by turning all your tasks (habits, dailies, study time and to-dos) into little monsters you have to conquer. The better you are at this, the more you progress in the game. If you slip up in life, your character starts backsliding in the game. It’s also available on Android and iOS operating systems.

Todoist – Is a free app that keeps track of all your tasks, projects, and goals in one place. Its clean look keeps you focused, and the app allows you to organize tasks into categories like household chores, reading lists, and long-term projects. You can access Todoist from any device, so you’ll always have it with you.

Dropbox – Is a file hosting service that you can access your work from any computer or device. You can also share documents with friends or group members which their edits will show up instantly for convenient group work. Basic account is free with 2 GB of space, but you can earn more space on your Basic account by referrals and enabling camera upload on mobile. Each referral that signs up for Dropbox will give you an extra 500 MB, and switching on automatic photo upload expands storage by three GB. The maximum free Dropbox storage can amount to 16 GB, so 28 referrals on top of your starting storage will get you there. Also, Dropbox is compatible with more platforms than Google Drive which is good if you need your cloud storage to across a range of devices.

Google Drive – However, Google Drive provides you with 15 GB of free online storage from the start, so you can keep photos, stories, designs, drawings, recordings, videos and whatever else in one place as well. Google Drive’s web client has more features, greater file type support and a better search tool than Dropbox. Unfortunately, Google Drive isn’t available for Linux and there isn’t an updated version of it for Chrome, Firefox, IE and Safari browsers.

Mircosoft OneDrive – Is another cloud storage service that you can access your files and photos from anywhere and on any device. As well as share and work together with anyone in your life. They use to offer 15 GB of free storage, but they’ve recently changed it to 5 GB. They also cut the previous bonus 15 GB of storage when you activate your camera roll backup.

Miscellaneous

UCampus – Makes it easier for you to find the information and resources you need as a college student. It also provides you with opportunities on your campus and in your city that you may otherwise miss.

Talktyper – Provides Speech Recognition for free. It makes voice dictation freely available to anyone with a computer.

My Money Steps – Is a free online debt advice service from National Debtline. They will tell you what options you can choose from to deal with your debts and give you a personal action plan to help you manage your money.

StudentRecipes – This site offers over 5000 quick and easy recipes for students by students. As a student you often don’t have the time or money, but with this site you can find plenty of recipes that are quick and easy to cook but more importantly cheap.

theSkimm – Is a free daily email newsletter that focuses on delivering a summarize version of all the top news stories for you with a bit of sassy humor. They also have an app called SkimmAhead that will sync important events, like the return of your favorite Netflix show or a presidential speech, with your iPhone calendar (and soon Androids as well).

UnplugtheTV – Is a website meant to replace mind-numbing television. Instead of wasting your life watching TV, you’ll be watching something much more mind-opening and educational. The site has hundreds of educational videos to help you learn or gain a new perspective. If you’re expecting to see cats being cute and double rainbows you’re going to be disappointed.

HackCollege – Is a lifehacking website on a mission to teach students to work more effectively. In addition to offering practical advice and tips, the site also provides information on quality open source software.

Hollar - Is not a dollar store in the sense that everything costs a $1; instead, almost everything is priced between $2 and $5. Free standard shipping is included for orders of at least $25. A lot of the items they have you’ll be saving 50-90% here than elsewhere on the web. So can find a little bit of everything from toys, apparel, electronics, beauty, accessories, party supplies, home essentials, and so much more. There’s also an app version for Androids and iOS.

PrintWhatYouLike – Lets you print the good parts of any web page while skipping ads and other junk, which is a great way to make sure that your ink last longer.

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Useful Websites for Students

I put together a post containing Awesome Sites and Links for Writers, which is also pretty useful for school work too. Some of these sites I’ve discovered on my own in pursuit of knowledge and other times by friends. Many of them I wish that I knew about back when I was school. Most of the websites listed below are geared towards college students, but a few are aimed at high school students and primary students. So there is a bit of everything for everyone.

Homework Help & Studying

Cheatography – A site that collects cheat sheets that condense information on all kinds of topics, which can be helpful for building study guides.

Study Hacks Blog – Is a college blog that contains a lot of study advice and studying strategies that actually work.

Quizlet – Provides free tools for students, teachers, and learners of all ages to make flashcards to help them study any subject. For many topics, someone has already created a list of flashcards that you can flip through. Generally they might not be exactly what you need, but they will be close enough. You can even print them off.

StudyBlue – Is an online studying platform for high school and college students. The website allows users to upload class study materials, create electronic flashcards to study and share with others, and practice quizzes. StudyBlue allows students to store their notes in the cloud and connect with other students studying the same subjects.

Koofers – This all-in-one website not only helps college students study by providing access to flash cards and practice exams. It also gives you information on professor ratings, helps you generate the ideal class schedule, and posts job/internship openings.

Shmoop – Connects 13 million students and teachers with study guides, practice tests, an essay lab, informational videos, and career advice.

Mathway – Is a free math problem solver from basic algebra to complex calculus with step-by-step explanations.

S.O.S. Mathematics – Is a free resource for math review material from Algebra to Differential Equations. Get help with your homework, refresh your memory, prepare for a test, and so on.

Math.com – Contains explanations on almost all topics in mathematics from basic math to algebra, geometry and beyond. If you need review, more practice or deeper understanding of specific topics, this is the place to look. There are many useful tools such as calculators, study tips, etc. Even games that require some logical thinking.

Symbolab – Performs operations, solves equations, computes derivatives and integrals and more. It even come with a symbolic interface.

Number Empire – Is a collection of math calculators that can help you solve equations, compute derivatives and integrals, matrix arithmetic, statistics, and more.

MathPapa – Helps you learn algebra step-by-step. You can also plug non-algebraic equations into Mathpapa and use it as a calculator. It will show you the final answer and step-by-step instructions how the calculations work. There’s also a mobile app of it for Android and iOS devices.

Citation Machine – Helps students and professional researchers to properly credit the information that they use.

CK-12 Foundation – Is a California-based non-profit organization whose stated mission is to reduce the cost of, and increase access to, K-12 education in the United States and worldwide. They provide a library of free online textbooks, videos, exercises, flashcards, and real world applications for over 5000 concepts from arithmetic to science to history and so on.

Course Hero – Is a crowd-sourced online learning platform for students to access study resources like course materials, flashcards, educational videos and tutors. Its educator portal is a micro publishing platform for educators to distribute their educational resources. Course Hero collects and organizes study materials like practice exams, problem sets, syllabus, flashcards, class notes and study guides from users who upload. Users either buy a subscription or upload documents in order to receive membership and access website material.

HippoCampus – Is a free, core academic web site that delivers rich multimedia content: videos, animations, and simulations on general education subjects to middle-school and high-school students to help with their homework and studies.

Slader.com – Offers millions of step-by-step solutions to all the questions in the most popular textbooks in middle school, high school, and college. Math homework answers, Science homework answers, Spanish, History, Economics, and more.

Free Online Courses

University of Reddit – Is a community project that aims to focus on the teaching, learning, and sharing of knowledge and experience among its users. There are over 100 courses available: Art, Computer Science, Fun and Games, General Studies, Language, Mathematics and Statistics, Music, Philosophy, Science, Social Sciences, and Technology. Within each category are many, many sub-categories, that focus on particular areas of the genre.

edX – Is a massive open online course (MOOC) provider. It hosts online university-level courses in a wide range of disciplines to a worldwide student body, including some courses at no charge. It also conducts research into learning based on how people use its platform. Unlike other MOOC, edX is a nonprofit organization and runs on the Open edX open-source software.

Khan Academy – Is a non-profit educational organization with a goal of creating an accessible place for people to be educated. The organization produces short lectures in the form of YouTube videos. Its website also includes supplementary practice exercises and tools for educators.

MIT OpenCourseWare – Is a web-based publication that contains thousands of Massachusetts Institute of Technology course content. It is a free and ranges from the introductory to the most advanced graduate level. Each OCW course includes a syllabus, some instructional material (such as lecture notes or a reading list), and some learning activities (such as assignments or exams). Many courses also have complete video lectures, free online textbooks, and faculty teaching insights. While some OCW content is custom-created for online use, most of it comes straight from the MIT classroom.

Udacity – Is a for-profit educational organization that offers massive open online courses (MOOCs) for free and Nanodegree programs.

Saylor Academy – Is a nonprofit initiative working since 2008 to offer free and open online courses to all who want to learn. They offer nearly 100 full-length courses at the college and professional levels, each of which is available to access at your pace and on your schedule.

Alison – Is a website founded with a noble goal: to enable anyone to receive free education of high quality. All you need is a will to learn new things and they will provide you with all necessary tools.  

Lynda – Is an online education company offering thousands of video courses in software, technology, creative, and business skills. The ones in blue are available to watch for free, so you don’t need a membership for them. However, others in grey require a lynda.com library subscription for access. But there is a way to get it for free and that’s by checking if the courses are available online through your local library’s website. There is a growing number of libraries that are providing their members free access to Lynda.com courses.

Udemy – Is an online learning platform. It is aimed at professional adults who want to add new skills to their resumes, or explore their passions. Unlike academic MOOC programs driven by traditional collegiate coursework, Udemy provides a platform for experts of any kind to create courses which can be offered to the public, either at no charge or for a tuition fee.

Codecademy – Is an online interactive platform that offers free coding classes in 12 different programming languages including Python, Java, PHP, JavaScript (jQuery, AngularJS, React.js), Ruby, SQL, and Sass, as well as markup languages HTML and CSS

Math Planet – Offers courses in high school math such as Pre-algebra, Algebra 1, Algebra 2 and Geometry for free. They also have practice tests for the SAT and ACT.

AcademicEarth – Has a collection of free online college courses from the world’s top universities. They also make sure that there is something for everyone: whether you want to explore a new topic or advance in your current field, they bring it to you for free.

Harvard University - Harvard Open Learning Initiative – Offers a series of free or low-cost courses. In addition, you can also browse Harvard University’s Digital Learning Portal, which features online learning content from across the University, both free and fee-based options.

Open Culture – Has 1,200 free online courses from the world’s leading universities: Stanford, Yale, MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford and more. You can download these audio & video courses (often from iTunes, YouTube, or university web sites) straight to your computer or mp3 player.

Open2Study – Is an initiative of Open Universities Australia that brings you the best in online education with their four-week, introductory subjects. Open2Study provides free, specialized short courses, entirely online, across the world, in a range of subject areas. When you successfully complete your course you’ll get a free Certificate of Achievement, which you can use to demonstrate your interest in learning about a certain area.

Information & Research

Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine – Introduces a fundamentally new way to get knowledge and answers; not by searching the web, but by doing dynamic computations based on a vast collection of built-in data, algorithms, and methods. In a way it’s basically a little bit of everything; a search engine, an encyclopedia, and a calculator that can answer nearly any questions you have.

Virtual Learning Resources Center (VLRC) – Is an online index hosting thousands of scholarly websites, all of which are selected by teachers and librarians from around the globe. The site provides students and teachers with current, valid information for school and university academic projects using an index gathered from research portals, universities and library internet subject guides recommended by teachers and librarians.

Stack Exchange – Is a network of question-and-answer website on topics in varied fields, each branch of the site covers a specific topic, where questions, answers, and users are subject to a reputation award process.

Microsoft Academic – Operated by the company that brings you Word, PowerPoint and Excel, it is a reliable, comprehensive research tool. The search engine pulls content from over 120 million publications, including scientific papers, conferences and journals. You can search directly by topic, or you can search by an extensive list of fields of study. For example, if you’re interested in computer science, you can filter through topics such as artificial intelligence, computer security, data science, programming languages and more.

Refseek – Is a web search engine for students and researchers that aims to make academic information easily accessible to everyone. RefSeek searches more than one billion documents, including web pages, books, encyclopedias, journals, and newspapers. It also has an option to search documents directly; providing easy access to PDFs of academic papers. 

WorldWideScience – Is operated by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, a branch of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy. The site utilizes databases from over 70 countries. When users type a query, it hits databases from all over the world and will display both English and translated results from related journals and academic resources.

Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) – Is a great tool for academic research with more than 1.3 million bibliographic records of articles and online materials. ERIC provides access to an extensive body of education-related literature including journal articles, books, research syntheses, conference papers, technical reports, policy papers and more.

iSEEK – Is a targeted search engine that compiles hundreds of thousands of authoritative resources from university, government, and established noncommercial providers. It provides time-saving intelligent search and a personal Web-based library to help you locate the most relevant results immediately and find them quickly later.

ResearchGate – Is a unique social networking site built by scientists, for scientists. Over 11 million researchers submit their work, which totals more than 100 million publications, on the site for anyone to access. You can search by publication, data and author, or you can even ask the researchers questions. Though it’s not a search engine that pulls from external sources, ResearchGate’s own collection of publications provides a hearty selection for any inquisitive scholar.

Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) – Prides itself as being “one of the world’s most voluminous search engines especially for academic web resources.” Utilizing 4,000 sources, the site contains results from over 100 million documents. The advanced search option allows users to narrow their research, so whether you’re looking for a book, review, lecture, video or thesis, BASE can provide the specific format you need.

Infotopia – Describes itself as a “Google-alternative safe search engine”. The academic search engine pulls from results that have been curated by librarians, teachers and other educational workers. The search feature allows users to select a category, which ranges from art to health to science and technology, and then see a list of internal and external resources pertaining to the topic. So if you don’t find what you’re looking for within the pages of Infotopia, you will probably find it in one of its many suggested sites.

PubMed Central – Is operated by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. The database contains more than 3 million full-text journal articles. It’s similar to PubMed Health, which is specifically for health-related research and studies, and includes citations and abstracts to more than 26 million articles.

Lexis Web – Is your go-to for any law-related inquiries you may have. The results are drawn from legal sites, which can be filtered by criteria such as news, blog, government and commercial. Users can also filter results by jurisdiction, practice area, source and file format. 

CollegeMajors101 – Wondering what you can do with a degree in biology or dance? College Majors 101 offers lots of information about what you can do with dozens of majors, as well as what you can expect academically if you pursue these majors.

College Insight – Is the brainchild of the Institute for College Access and Success. It gathers detailed information on thousands of colleges. You can find statistics for any school on such topics as college affordability, graduation rates, and college diversity, including the racial and ethnic breakdown of students and professors. 

Fastweb – Is an online resource in finding scholarships to help you pay for school. All you have to do is make a profile and you’ll have access to their database of more than 1.5 million scholarships.

Books & Shopping (Student Discounts & Deals)

Online Research Library: Questia – Is an online commercial digital library of books and articles that has an academic orientation, with a particular emphasis on books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences. Questia’s library has over 5,000 public domain, classic and rare books that you can read online absolutely free.

The Book Pond – Is an independent online selling service for UK university students and graduates. They allow you to sell your old academic textbooks or buy the ones you need from other students who don’t need them anymore.

Chegg – Is an American online textbook rental company that specializes in online textbook rentals (both in physical and digital formats), homework help, online tutoring, scholarships and internship matching.

Open Book Project – Was made specifically for the academic community. Students and teachers can find free textbooks and other open-source education materials.

Bookboon – Is a source for free textbooks in PDF form that focus primarily on accounting, economics, engineering, IT, marketing, and management. The books are modest in size, most run from 50 to 100 pages.

Boundless – Offers openly licensed, high-quality, customizable digital courseware at a fraction of the cost of traditional textbooks.

Project Gutenberg – Offers more than 43,000 e-books, completely free. Comparative literature students taking only Jane Austen at Binghamton University, for example, can find every book on their syllabus via Project Gutenberg. Titles available on the site span categories such as archaeology, horticulture, microbiology and World War I. Copyrights are expired on all of the titles available for download via Project Gutenberg, so students studying history or classic literature may have more luck than those taking courses in other subjects.

Open Textbook Library – Contains textbooks that have been funded, published, and licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. These books have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost. All textbooks are either used at multiple higher education institutions; or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society, or professional organization.

Internet Sacred Text Archive – Is a freely available archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, where possible, in the original language.

StudentRate – A site that allows college students to take full advantage of their school ID to get student deals and discounts on clothes, travel, textbooks, electronics, and lots of other things.

UNiDAYS – Is totally free to join, and used by over 4.3 million students every day. Signing up provides discounts on fashion, technology, music, stationary, food and more. It’s super useful when online shopping, and useful offline too.

Save the Student – Calls itself the number one student money website in the UK. It gives budgeting advice on how to make money and how to save money. Gives you checklists when looking for a student house, how to pay bills, what to take to university.

Student Hut – Is an online resource that helps prospective students find highly rated university courses, student offers & freebies, jobs and guides.

Student Beans – Is a popular UK hub where students could find useful stuff like offers and discounts on everything from travel, to fashion, to health and beauty and gadgets. And what students can get for free, from Uber vouchers to free drinks and trips to America. It has a dedicated jobs section, advertising part time jobs, internships and grad schemes.

Groupon – In college, every dollar counts so it helps to have Groupon when you can’t find any Student discounts and deals going on. When you and your friends are looking to try out a new restaurant, or if you’re looking for some alternative Friday night plans, make sure you check this first. It offers deals on everything from dining out to shopping products based on your location.

Amazon Student – With a student email (an valid .edu e-mail address), you get six months of Amazon Prime for free! Which means free two-day shipping, cheap textbook rentals, and discounts on anything from electronics to clothing. You’ll also earn $5 for each friend you refer, and they’ll get $5 credit as well. When the free trial ends, students will have to pay a fee of $49 per year, which is 50% off the cost of Prime membership. The student fee includes extra perks such as unlimited instant streaming of movies, TV shows and music. If you don’t want that, just make sure to cancel before your free trial ends.

CollegeBudget – Is like Groupon for college students. There’s all sorts of discounts on clothing, electronics, activities, and more. 

Apps & Tools

Sleepyti.me – Uses the sciences of REM cycles to calculate the optimal time you should go to bed in order to feel well-rested, especially when you have to be up at a certain hour.

Alarmy – This app ensures that you get up in the morning for work or school by being very annoying. You set it up by registering a photo of an area or room in your house. Then once the alarm is set, the ONLY way to make it stop ringing is to get out of bed and go take a photo of the registered area. There are other options as well, such as doing a math problem in order to turn the alarm off or shaking it for a certain amount. It’s available on Android and iOS.

Ginger Software – Contains a free online spelling and grammar checker that will correct any mistakes you make. They also creates apps and products that help people communicate more productively and efficiently on their mobile devices and desktop computers.

Plagtracker – Is a plagiarism checker that scans content to determine if any part of your essay has been plagiarized. Teachers aren’t the only ones that use this, students, website owners, and anyone else interested in protecting their writing do.

Hemingway Editor – Is a proofreading tool that helps you to see and fix potential problem areas in your writing. It color codes each potential error type, so you can address them one at a time. It’s a standalone program that costs $20 US, and you can download it to a PC or a Mac computer. But there is also a free online version of it that you can try.

Student Loan Calculator – Was made by the College Board to make it easier for college students to stay on top for their student loan payments.

Desmos – Is a free online grapher and scientific calculator. 

Mint – Is a free money manager and financial tracker app from the makers of TurboTax that does it all. It’s available on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch as well as on Android.

My Study Life – Is a free app that lets you coordinate your calendar and to-do list. It is designed especially for schools, a planner that can be customized for rotating schedules and long-term assignments. You can even set up reminders about your homework due dates. The app is available on iPhone, Android, Windows 8, Windows Phone and the web. 

Habitica – Is a free self-improvement web application with game mechanics overlaid to help the player keep track of and remain motivated to achieve their goals. They do so by turning all your tasks (habits, dailies, study time and to-dos) into little monsters you have to conquer. The better you are at this, the more you progress in the game. If you slip up in life, your character starts backsliding in the game. It’s also available on Android and iOS operating systems.

Todoist – Is a free app that keeps track of all your tasks, projects, and goals in one place. Its clean look keeps you focused, and the app allows you to organize tasks into categories like household chores, reading lists, and long-term projects. You can access Todoist from any device, so you’ll always have it with you.

Dropbox – Is a file hosting service that you can access your work from any computer or device. You can also share documents with friends or group members which their edits will show up instantly for convenient group work. Basic account is free with 2 GB of space, but you can earn more space on your Basic account by referrals and enabling camera upload on mobile. Each referral that signs up for Dropbox will give you an extra 500 MB, and switching on automatic photo upload expands storage by three GB. The maximum free Dropbox storage can amount to 16 GB, so 28 referrals on top of your starting storage will get you there. Also, Dropbox is compatible with more platforms than Google Drive which is good if you need your cloud storage to across a range of devices.

Google Drive – However, Google Drive provides you with 15 GB of free online storage from the start, so you can keep photos, stories, designs, drawings, recordings, videos and whatever else in one place as well. Google Drive’s web client has more features, greater file type support and a better search tool than Dropbox. Unfortunately, Google Drive isn’t available for Linux and there isn’t an updated version of it for Chrome, Firefox, IE and Safari browsers.

Mircosoft OneDrive – Is another cloud storage service that you can access your files and photos from anywhere and on any device. As well as share and work together with anyone in your life. They use to offer 15 GB of free storage, but they’ve recently changed it to 5 GB. They also cut the previous bonus 15 GB of storage when you activate your camera roll backup.

Miscellaneous

UCampus – Makes it easier for you to find the information and resources you need as a college student. It also provides you with opportunities on your campus and in your city that you may otherwise miss.

Talktyper – Provides Speech Recognition for free. It makes voice dictation freely available to anyone with a computer.

My Money Steps – Is a free online debt advice service from National Debtline. They will tell you what options you can choose from to deal with your debts and give you a personal action plan to help you manage your money.

StudentRecipes – This site offers over 5000 quick and easy recipes for students by students. As a student you often don’t have the time or money, but with this site you can find plenty of recipes that are quick and easy to cook but more importantly cheap.

theSkimm – Is a free daily email newsletter that focuses on delivering a summarize version of all the top news stories for you with a bit of sassy humor. They also have an app called SkimmAhead that will sync important events, like the return of your favorite Netflix show or a presidential speech, with your iPhone calendar (and soon Androids as well).

UnplugtheTV – Is a website meant to replace mind-numbing television. Instead of wasting your life watching TV, you’ll be watching something much more mind-opening and educational. The site has hundreds of educational videos to help you learn or gain a new perspective. If you’re expecting to see cats being cute and double rainbows you’re going to be disappointed.

HackCollege – Is a lifehacking website on a mission to teach students to work more effectively. In addition to offering practical advice and tips, the site also provides information on quality open source software.

Hollar - Is not a dollar store in the sense that everything costs a $1; instead, almost everything is priced between $2 and $5. Free standard shipping is included for orders of at least $25. A lot of the items they have you’ll be saving 50-90% here than elsewhere on the web. So can find a little bit of everything from toys, apparel, electronics, beauty, accessories, party supplies, home essentials, and so much more. There’s also an app version for Androids and iOS.

PrintWhatYouLike – Lets you print the good parts of any web page while skipping ads and other junk, which is a great way to make sure that your ink last longer.

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ways to study for exams that are actually productive

use actual note cards for vocab. yes, apps like quizlet are dandy when you’re on the go, but actually physically writing out each note card helps put the information into memory faster than typing them.

visual learner? make charts and diagrams. they don’t have to be pretty. the lines don’t have to be perfectly straight. it doesn’t have to be photogenic. but if it helps you learn, do it.

after you take notes (in class or at home/from your text book), write down possible quiz questions about the material on the next page while it’s still fresh in your mind. later on when you’re studying for the test, use these questions to gauge what specifics out of that chapter you need to work on the most.

start sooner rather than later. i know, you’ve heard this a million times from every teacher ever. but it’s legit. especially as you get into harder level classes and college courses because there is literally so much material that the tests cover that you simply can not accurately learn all of it over night. instead, start about 10 days in advance (but of coarse, the sooner the better).

studying doesn’t have to be a big giant study session that takes hours. if you start far enough in advance, study sessions can be around an hour, hell even 45 minutes is a good. if you go too long in one study session your brain will be fried and studying will be pointless because your brain won’t be processing any of it. that’s why it’s important to take breaks and not just cram for 5 hours the night before an exam.

actually study. hold yourself accountable and make your education a priority. if you have homework and studying to do, make it a priority over going partying or watching tv. there will be another party. you can dvr your show. you can’t take your test on a later day because you don’t feel ready. so be ready.

be careful with study groups. if you have a study group with all of your best friends, lets face it, you’re going to end up spending more time talking about harry styles and supernatural than actually studying. it’s better to have a study group with people who are your friends, but not best friends. and it’s better to keep it between 5-7 people so that everyone can be involved.

if the material is just super confusing and you can’t seem to understand it no matter how hard you study, it’s not you. it’s the way you were taught it. each teacher teaches a bit differently, and maybe their style of teaching just isn’t for you. if this happens, find a way that explains it the best for you. for example, if chemistry is just super confusing for you, try watching the Crash Course chemistry videos on youtube or have a friend explain it to you. this will give you a completely different perspective on the material and will help you understand it better.

at the end of the day, remember that everything will be okay. studying can be stressful, especially if it’s in a class that you struggle in. but i promise you that you are not the only one who struggles sometimes in school, it’s a part of being human. as long as you actually put in an effort and try your best, be proud of yourself. take a deep breath. and remember: you got this.

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I wish everyone would wake up and realize that your idealized self is simply your current self but with drive. The person you want to be is you if you put in the work! Like, life is ultimately up to us and we can change ourselves whenever we want! Make plans to do better for yourself, speak it into fruition, and work for it.

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From #33strategiesofwar one of my fav.

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Study Pack #2

by Eintsein

It’s a new year, and whether you’re looking to organize your current study process, or try out something more productive, this study pack can help you out. These are some of the methods I use to help myself study more effectively, and I’ve decided to make some printables out of them so that you can use them too!

In this study pack:

Day Tracker: to schedule your day or keep track of how you use your time.

Past Paper Tracker: to track all the past papers you’re practicing.

Past Paper Summary: to summarize the trends in your past papers so you can plan your studying accordingly.

Topic Tracker: to track the topics that appear in the past papers.

Syllabus Tracker: to help you know where you currently are in your syllabus: what’s been done and what’s left to do, along with how well you know the material

Click here to download! (link to study drive)

Hope these help, and don’t forget to tag me with #eintsein when you use them - I’d love to see them in action! And if you have any questions, drop me an ask/message. Have an awesome day :)

P.S. Examples of how to use some of these printables are in the gifs above, but of course, you’re free to use them in whatever method works best for you. For example, for the topic tracker, instead of distinguishing between the number of marks for the question, you could keep track of how many marks you’ve received for that topic (i.e. 100% means you get full marks for every single question of that topic).

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white mocha + holiday music make me much more likely to study ☕️🎵

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Getting Stuff Done: How to Deal With Lack of Motivation

“How can I stay disciplined?”

“How can I get things done if I don’t feel like doing them?”

“How can I overcome my lack of motivation?”

As a college student who has had their fair share of being absolutely unmotivated to do anything, I know it can be hard to get things done if you don’t feel like doing them. Luckily, there are some things you can do to become more motivated to finish your homework, write your paper, study for your exam, or whatever tasks you have on your plate.

Part 1: Increasing motivation

Break up your tasks

Just thinking about one huge task is going to intimidate you so much that you’d rather leave it till later, when the urgency of time pushes you to complete it, than start now.

Breaking up your big tasks into smaller ones will make your tasks seem less daunting. Since you won’t be as intimidated by the amount of effort it might take to complete these tasks, you’ll be more likely to start doing them.

For studying, this can be something like ‘make flashcards for units 1-3’ or ‘practice past exam papers: 2015 + 2016’. For writing papers, this could be writing an outline, doing research for each point of your outline, writing the first 3 paragraphs, etc.

Working on small tasks at a time will also make you less prone to distractions since you only need to focus for a short length of time.

Make small goals and reward yourself

These goals could be accomplishing one of the smaller subtasks above, or achieving a certain grade on a practice test, or finishing a section of your study plan - as long as you’re working towards something.

The rewards? Maybe going out to eat, watching something, or even just time off. Hopefully these rewards will motivate you to complete your task.

I know some people are more inclined to do their work if they’re punished for not doing it, rather than rewarded for doing it, so if you wanna take the ‘punishment’ approach, you could do something like not allowing yourself to use social media until you finish a set of tasks - this is essentially the same thing, just thought about in a different manner. However, you should always be careful with these punishments/restrictions, because sometimes they can end up harming your health and productivity (e.g. ‘I can’t take a break until I finish all of my homework’).

Part 2: Not relying on motivation

Of course, you can’t always expect yourself to be motivated all the time. In fact, it’s very ineffective to rely on motivation to get things done; motivation is fleeting. Here’s an alternative: self-discipline. But how does it work?

Establish a study routine

Humans are creatures of habit. Even if you’re a P-type (like me), habits are hard to break. So making a habit of accomplishing your tasks/studying at a set time every day will help you, well, accomplish them. For example, it’s a lot easier to get your homework done every day if you do it at the same time - e.g. once you come home from school - rather than doing it ‘whenever you have time’.

Having a study routine will also make you less likely to be distracted since you know that that period of time had a purpose. If you’re trying this out for the first time, you might wanna completely get rid of distractions so that you can focus (e.g. putting your phone in your bag, on silent). However, with practice, I found that my phone or any other sources of distraction don’t really bother me anymore since I’ve had tons of practice resisting the urge to pick up my phone whenever there’s a notification, for example.

Schedule in time for breaks

This ties in well with the point about rewards: the break might be the reward for your studying. However, this doesn’t always have to be the case. You shouldn’t always think of relaxing as merely a reward for studying or accomplishing your tasks, but rather a necessity for the well-being of your mind. This sort of approach to breaks ensures that you actually let your brain rest once in a while.

After taking a break, your mind will be refreshed and revitalized, and you should have more than enough energy to continue with your other tasks.

Some of you asked - with regards to my previous post on The Mandatory Midday Break - how I can limit myself to exactly an hour, and to be honest, the answer is habit. It’s like having a habit of showering at the same time every day and not extend the length of time you spend in the bathroom (except in certain circumstances, like during a day off, I guess).

This is why it’s important to schedule your breaks and establish a study routine or habit - not only does it ensure you get enough rest, but it also prevents you from extending your break so that you don’t become unproductive and leave a ton of tasks unfinished.

It can be hard to motivate yourself to accomplish all your tasks, but there are things you can do to increase your motivation. However, you can’t expect to be motivated all the time, and you shouldn’t rely on motivation to get things done. Discipline and habit are the most important tools you can use to be efficient and productive without having to be motivated.

Hope this post has been helpful, and, as always, feel free to drop me an ask if you have an ask. Have an awesome week :)

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what do i do when i’m feeling rudderless? excellent question.

no one has actually asked me this but i’m putting it here on the off-chance that it’ll be helpful for someone else and because i know i’ll also see it again and remind myself of the best ways i get myself out of these weird ruts. when i’m feeling unmotivated and super foggy and real frustrated with a lack of energy (all symptoms of burnout for me, by the way, so i’m trying to also lighten up on myself while acknowledging that i still gotta get things done!!) here’s what i do to give myself some sense of direction & sense of self:

1. i make a big ol’ brain dump to-do list. sometimes this can make me more anxious because wow that’s a lot of stuff to do, but! it also helps manage that anxiety by reassuring me that i’m not forgetting anything important by, say, trying to manage that anxiety by only focusing on one task. i then pull a muchelle b and i organize those to-do’s - usually i do it by date and level of importance.

2. i figure out what i need to get done, bare minimum, on that bad day i’m having. today, for example, what i really need to get done to make sure tomorrow isn’t an embarrassing disaster is finish reading the text we’re teaching tomorrow and plan my tutorials. that’s it. ideally i’ll also get some research and drafting done, or some readings for my tuesday seminar, but if i don’t, it’s okay. setting this low bar for myself makes that ‘ah!! huge to-do list!!’ feeling a little more bearable. sometimes even the minimum to-do list is enormous, so if that’s the case….

3. i figure out if i need to reach out for help. do i need to ask a prof for an extension? do i need to ask for help clarifying an assignment if i’m super stuck on where to start? what is making starting my task so difficult? am i confused, or bored, or nervous?

4. i make an hour-by-hour schedule for the week. i literally block out every single hour with what i would, ideally, be doing. remember that to-do list i just organized? pull it out. first, i put all of my commitments into my calendar. appointments, teaching hours, office hours, coffee with friends, meal times, and time with A. the non-negotiables. then i look at my to-do list, my RA hours that need to get done that week, and i start popping them in where they fit or as makes sense given their deadline. one hour work study, one hour research, one hour marking. one hour to eat & tidy my kitchen. one hour reading for class, one hour research, one hour marking. i take breaks within these hours when i feel i need them, and they’re not set in stone - they’re there so that when i’m sitting at my desk going ‘oh my god where do i start what do i do today’, i don’t have to pull that out of my head - i can look at my schedule and let it tell me what to do instead.

5. i journal it all out. i always have a lot of feelings associated with not getting work done - guilt, negative self-talk, i’m useless and unproductive, a dump truck full of shame… you know, the usual yucky stuff it hurts to say to ourselves and the feelings that weigh us down big time. a big one for me that i’ve mentioned a few times is hating the feeling of being unreliable. i want my profs to feel like they can rely on me to get work done, and i hate flopping on that one in particular. so i journal a bit, and it’s a practice in self-forgiveness. how am i feeling? why? okay. acknowledge it, it’s there, i feel it - and i’m human. i can move on from where i’m at now with a forward-focused outlook, a lot of determination, and, at the very least, a whole lot of stubbornness about wanting to improve. i come out of those journal sessions with a clearer head, clarity around the way i’m feeling, and a whole heck of a lot less shame. then i make a cup of tea, pour myself a big glass of cold water, clear off my desk, and start working. 

it’s never a guarantee that it’ll yank me out quickly - sometimes an hour of planning and muchelle b is enough to pull me out, and sometimes - like today! - i’ll spend the majority of an afternoon trying to claw my way back to some semblance of productivity or sense of purpose and peace. no judgment for myself, no frustration that i ‘wasted’ time when i could have been working - realistically, i would have spent those hours on my phone or full of shame and frustration instead of working anyway, so i allow myself to take the time i need. hope you’re all having a lovely november - it can be a brutal time of the semester, but we’re gonna be okay! we’ve got this.

[redefine-cvii-blog]

50 Things that Top Students Do

Listen to everything they’re taught, not just hearing

Take notes

Listen to opinions they don’t like

Be open to having their minds changed

Don’t listen to music with words when studying

Practise

Commit

Keep a regimen of self-discipline even in the face of a lack of motivation

Take breaks

Sleep regularly and more than expected

Work very hard during the day

Exercise

Plan in advance

Get small tasks done when there isn’t time to do bigger ones

Engage

Take failures as a learning curve

Think positively

Do their best work at the start of the year so they get more slack later

Talk to those who teach them

Debate

Do a little every day instead of all at once

Ask for help

Help others

Drink water

Work hard but work smart

Know what study setup is their most productive

Hold themselves accountable

Figure out which work is a priority

Don’t waste time re-reading as a form of studying

Find out things they don’t understand

Test themselves frequently

Work backwards through things to understand why something works

Learn more than they need

Have more interests and hobbies than just academics

Find out the most important concepts in a course

Learn the most important 20% of the course to get 80% of the grade

Don’t complain

Tailor their courses to focus on what interests them the most

Play hard after working hard

Read in advance

Know how to say no but don’t say no unless they have to

Take every opportunity they can

Eat well

Defend their personal beliefs

Don’t use other people’s successes/failures as an excuse for anything they do

Don’t let studying become the main part of their life

Understand that everything is temporary

Set goals, short- and long-term

Put their phones away/on silent when studying

Don’t expect any results immediately

[redefine-cvii-blog]

HOW TO WAKE UP EARLIER IN THE MORNING

 Although waking up earlier than you need to in the morning where you wake up earlier enough sounds horrific, it’s actually the perfect time to get your day started on a productive and relaxed note, and can seriously boost your productivity and organisation for the rest of the day. However, it’s a pain to start off with as you try and get into the habit of getting up early, but I promise it’s worth it.

Get yourself to bed on time: If you’ve set yourself a time to be in bed, stick to it, as the later you stay up, the more difficult it will be to get up the following morning (obviously). Especially if you’re trying to push your sleep schedule back by a number of hours, it’s worth exercising a lot so you tire yourself out and sleep more soundly, and (as I have recommended in numerous posts), you could try taking a melatonin supplement (all-natural and non-addictive) to help you fall asleep faster. If you really can’t live without technology for the half hour before you sleep, put on a blue light filter, which stops the blue light from interfering with ylur sleep and lessening chances of eye strain.

Make sure you still get enough sleep: It’s tempting to sneak in a couple of hours more awake time so you have more hours in a day, but in order for those hours to be their most productive, you need to have had enough sleep so your brain has enough energy to function at full capacity. This obviously takes some trial and error, but eventually you will find the ideal number of hours that you need to sleep (and if it lines up with your sleep cycles you’ll feel even more awake- I use this tool to try and do this).

Force yourself out of bed in the morning: Admittedly, this takes a heck of a lot of self-discipline, made even harder by the fact that you’ll be half asleep when you attempt this, but the only way to alter your sleep schedule is to really stick to your guns on this one. To achieve this, put your alarm on the other side of the room, and make your bed as soon as you get out of it, because as you well know there is nothing more tempting than getting back into bed. Remember also to change your alarm sound regularly, as your brain builds up rage reactions after a while because your alarm breaks you out of your sleep. Newer Samsung phones have an option to play different music depending on the weather forecast, which is good for someone who doesn’t want to have to remember to change their alarm (alternatively you can use a radio alarm so the sound is always different).

Make tea or coffee and food if you want: When I get up in the morning, the trip to the kitchen to make tea is enough to get my brain fully awake. I’m also always super hungry when I get up, so I normally make porridge with dried apricots to sweeten, which is kind of a pre-breakfast breakfast (my main breakfast is more protein-based, and the porridge is more carbs). I’m the kind of person who needs a huge breakfast to not get tired during the day, but if you’re not, then at least make yourself a hot drink or something that will wake you up.

Drink water: This is general advice for anyone as soon as they get up in the morning, but whatever time you get up in the morning it’s important to drink water to replace all the water you’ve lost in your sleep. It helps you feel more alert, especially if you drink cold water.

Stretch: I initially started stretching in the morning because I wanted a more secure front split and I had no other time in the day to work on it. Now, I stretch in the morning (mostly legs still but some arm/shoulder stuff) to get the blood flowing around my system, because I find it makes me much less sleepy, and I can stretch while I watch the Philip DeFranco show or some other YouTube video. Even if you’re not flexible at all, it’s worth doing it in the morning just to get yourself moving. If you feel like getting up and actually going for a run, that’s even better (and very impressive).

Plan everything out the night before: I keep a tiny A6 blank reporter’s notebook on my desk, and the night before I make to do lists of things that need doing the next morning, including things like washing my face and stretching. I find it helps me keep up my habits, and if there’s anything that I need to do as soon as I wake up (like emailing people or finishing an essay plan), I’ll put that down too. I don’t really like doing full-scale work assignments in the morning unless I have to, as my days are pretty packed and I like having some time to myself before launching into a day. I also plan out my outfits the night before, so I don’t have to make too many decisions, which might add to decision fatigue over the course of a day. Everything runs a lot more smoothly, and it’s easier to get up early if you already know what you’re going to get done in the extra time that you’ve given yourself.

 The above list is everything that helped me get into a routine of getting up early (which was the first New Year’s Resolution I’ve actually stuck to), so I hope it helps you!