#Productivity

[nephritebabie]

acknowledge your progress, even if you’re not finished yet

[the---hermit]

19|02|2025

My anxiety has been randomly spiking up, but thankfully I have my meds, and I am making an effort to take them regularly. Despite struggling a bit to focus in the morning I managed to finish an entire chapter. I am quite hopeful for the progress I can make in the second half of this week. Hopefully I'll finish all the materials for this class, and I'll be able to plan and move on to a different section of my to do lists.

9/50 days of productivity:

read first thing in the morning

read and wrote notes for an article for my spaces of knowledge class

Irish on duolingo

went to an in person lecture

📖: Witchcraft For Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

🎧: The Magnus Protocol s1, Books Unbound

[positivelypresent]

How do you measure productivity?

[studyandsteep]

ultimate test prep checklist: the day before

a few years back, i made a checklist to help keep me on track for major testing days. it helped a lot, so just decided to share it!

☐ get at least 7 hours of sleep before your test. for teenagers, get at least 8-9 hours. make sure you don't oversleep, though; you can end up groggy on testing day. i've said this once and i'll say it again: good sleep is crucial for test scores. avoid stupid mistakes as much as possible.

☐ eat a healthy, nutritious breakfast. go for fruits, oats, eggs- whatever can keep you awake & alert throughout the day without making you crash from a sugar high.

☐ don't continue cramming on the night before. it sounds counterintuitive, but anything you do the night before will only make you more agitated the next day + won't even matter, since one day of studying doesn't make much difference. instead, focus on getting a good night's sleep.

☐ stay hydrated. don't underestimate how much hydration can affect your concentration. a general rule of thumb is to drink half your body weight in ounces.

☐ organize your materials. no one wants to show up on testing day and realize their calculator died. make sure you pack everything you need and might need (better be safe than sorry), including chargers, extra pencils, and your notes.

☐ always arrive five minutes early. you want to have time to set your materials up and have advance notice in case anything goes wrong. start your test on a good note.

☐ do a light review a few hours before. do not cram. just review your notes, go over the concepts in your brain. now is not the time to ask questions about concepts you're confused about.

☐ stay confident & calm. you got this! one test won't be the end of everything. remain calm throughout the test and DO NOT PANIC. panicking will make everything worse- stay calm and skip questions you don't understand. you can always go back to them afterwards.

and that's a wrap! hopefully you all found this useful.

i've also created a google docs you can print out, which can be accessed here:

test-taking strategies, part 4 - full series here!

[lottiestudying]

21.02.2025—late night study after spending the day off

[qsplaylist]

how to deal with stage fright ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

a non-basic comprehensive guide, by an easily-scared girlie

1. Before

don't eat too much. I get very scared and nervous before I have to do anything in front of a group of more than 3 people. I mean very scared. As in my stomach starts hurting. if you're like me, then eating a bit lighter beforehand can save you the stress when you stomach starts hurting (and the stress making you feel worse)

manifest success. close your eyes. imagine yourself finishing the thing that you've been so worried about. envision yourself doing the greatest job, and it will happen.

say "i'm excited". our brains are more powerful than you think (ha! get it? okay, that was lame). since fear/anxiety and excitement feel very similar, try to gaslight yourself into thinking that you're just very excited to do it.

2. During

set your mindset (again). before I perform, I try to remind myself the beginning of whatever I'm doing. for example, if I'm playing a piece, I will hum the first few measures, just so I remember. or the first few words of my speech. once you start, your body will know what to do!

pretend to slay. you know what? even if you mess up, nobody knows! nobody know the piece you're playing, or the song you're singing, or the speech you're giving. keep your head high and pretend that you've completely outdone yourself. once you believe that about yourself, other people will often follow.

stay in the moment. if you're anything like me, you may tend to think to the past or the future while you're performing. something like this: future: I'm going to mess up and say something totally embarrassing. past: last time I gave this speech in front of my Mom and I freaked out and forgot this part! future: you're going to forget it again. and that will be totally humiliating! instead, just keep telling yourself to stay where you are, in the present! you're just playing your song at the moment. you're just talking to other people at the moment. you're just sharing what you've learned. the past has gone by, and the future has its own worries.

3. After

don't freak out. what's done is done.

congratulate yourself. you did it! the hardest part of the process is over. you did an amazing job. showing up is enough. performing is enough. doing anything at all is enough, if not more than enough. you're a winner because you did it.

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡

a reminder to all the lovely people on the internet: it's completely normal to be scared. even my favorite pianist for many years, yuja wang, gets terrible stage fright before she performs. now, though, you'll be equipped with some tips on how to perform despite the fears that you have. I'm going to end off this post with one of my favorite quotes:

True courage is in facing danger when you are afraid.

-- L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

thank you for reading all the way through, and wishing you a blessed rest of your day <3

sincerely yours, q's playlist

[thepeacefulgarden]

You are doing your best, and your best is enough. It's all anyone can ask of you, including yourself.

[outsassing-nero]

19.02.25// currently reading (times two) + impressions from a recent museum visit!

im still primarily working on the structure of my phd thesis, adding some connections between chapters and making one of the sections more "easy-reading friendly", as my advisor suggested!

listening to: peter heppner, chance

[skeletonclaw]

Signed prints available

[the---hermit]

20|02|2025

Every day there is a new problem and a new existential crisis about it. I was expecting this last semester to be super smooth and it's the complete opposite. Hopefully I'll figure out how to work things out for the best. As for actual studying today I started on my last non mandatory chapter, which I actually found out is two chapters from the same book. I have finished the first, and tomorrow I will finish the second, leaving me with just two more pieces of material for this class. I will definitely not be finishing everything by the end of the week but that's fine. I'd also like to tidy up the notes I took in class, so I'll need at least half a day for that, probably on Saturday.

10/50 days of productivity

read first thing in the morning

worked on the last non-mandatory article for my spaces of knowledge class (I completed the first half and started working on the second)

looked into infos on the professor I plan on asking to be my thesis advisor and unless there are big big changes I will be emailing him right after my spring exam season to talk about it

tried to update my classes plan on my uni's website - had several existential crisis about it - ended up finding kind of a solution but I am neither sure nor thrilled about it

sent a ticket to uni staff because of course there were problems on the app that I cannot solve by myself

set up my bujo for next week and realized we are basically at the end of the month wtf

Irish on duolingo

📖: Witchcraft For Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

[liones-s]

a big lesson for me was learning that most things are not as fragile as I’d believed. missing a class, or turning in a bad assignment, won’t instantly destroy your professor’s opinion of you. accidentally saying something harsh won’t make your friend want to end the friendship. it takes work to repair these things - it takes effort and research and sometimes a sincere apology - but you can do that because they’re not irreparably broken. what you’ve worked to build, in academia and in relationships and in life, is stronger and more enduring that your mind may teach you to believe. don’t let imagined fragility lead you to giving up

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[dreamdolldiary]

[lottiestudying]

20.02.2025—some recent notes for class

[csuitebitches]

Start planning 2025

Make a list of all the emotions you want to feel at the end of 2025.

Now work backwards and write down all the tasks you need to do in order to feel that way.

Make a separate list of all the “gaps” - what do you currently not have in order to do those tasks to make you feel the way you want?

And lastly, write down how you can fill those gaps. Do you need a gym membership to become fit to feel good about your yourself? Do you need to learn how to cook better meals in order to feel healthy and energised? Do you need to start applying to jobs, in order to secure one, in order to feel financially safe? Do you need to buy an old school alarm clock that’s going to wake up your entire apartment building in order to wake up early? what do you need to DO?

also, make a list of all the things that worked out for you in 2024. Learn to celebrate and appreciate, even the smallest of wins.

For the next two months start the trial and error process of this program. Let’s say you decide that you want to work out 7 days a week in order to feel good about your body. Now halfway through November you realise that 7 days is probably too much, and 5 days would be better for your schedule. Or you decide to read 3 books a week, but realistically, maybe a chapter a day is better.

November and December are your trial months. By the time January starts, be ready with a program that is built for you, works for you, and can be completed by you.

Don’t forget about keeping a reward mechanism. If you complete your daily tasks for 1 month straight, buy that little purse you were eyeing, or take yourself to a spa. Reward yourself in ways you like so that :

a) you’re not in an endless cycle of never being satisfied

b) you don’t drop everything for a man or a friend who shows you the slightest bit of affection because you won’t show it to yourself

c) it encourages you to work harder for yourself.