I’m really glad to see the ‘mature side*’ of studyblr having this conversation, and agree with OP. And I know OP doesn’t want to debate the point, so absolutely don’t expect a reply. I just also feel strongly that the whole studyblr aesthetic thing is a double-edged sword. Whilst it motivates people, it also lays on a lot of unnecessary pressures, encourages creativity as a form of procrastination, and ultimately distracts people from the purpose of studying in general.
I get the need for artistic outlets, I’m an artist after all. I could draw everyday and still feel I need another outlet. But I actually think that in many ways, having your artistic outlet be your revision is not always healthy, nor always conducive to studying.
The main aim of study is to learn the material you need to know. Preferably in an efficient way. The higher up you get, the more material people throw at you, and the more complex it is, so the better you have to be at picking it up quickly. I wasn’t trying to be efficient at 13, I just wrote stuff down in my book and read it over, but I certainly wasn’t efficient about it. But by 23, I was thinking a lot more carefully about how I studied, because there was a lot more material, and I was busier, and I’d gained a lot of useful experience and efficiency. Now, when I revise for postrgaduate medical exams, I’m about as likely to make pretty notes as I am to climb everest; I’m going to work over online questions and jot down rough notes for the things that really matter. That’s it. Efficiency over everything; I’m just too busy to make illuminated manuscripts I’ll never read again. If I do want to be creative, I’ll spend that time on something that matters. Life is short, after all.
The risks of having your notes or bullet journal be your stress relief as well as your work are that you might well spend far too much time prettifying your notes, and not enough time revising. It’s really tempting, and it’s absolutely fuelled by social media and studyblr culture, even though that’s not what anybody intended. When I was in secondary school, we didn’t have that (and this was only 10 years ago!). Nobody knew what my notes looked like or what my desk looked like. Nobody went to starbucks to study (because there was no such thing as instagramming shots of your artfully arranged cafe table). I had stationery, yes (gel pens were huge!) but they didn’t have to be designer, and nobody cared what your computer or your rucksack were like, and nobody had 10,000 followers. And this all developed later, and it actually makes it harder for younger students to do what they need to: study. All of these things are distractions which make it harder for people to be efficient and focus on what they need to.
I do feel that making notes pretty, during work time, is ‘revision time wasted’. It’s also a form of procrastination in itself; you may feel productive, but if what 50% of what you are actually doing is worrying if it’s pretty enough to instagram, writing it out again because you messed up, trawling your room for the right washi tape, writing slowly so that it’s neat, composing perfect photos with your favourite succulents, and generally stressing over how to make it nice enough, because all the other studyblrs have such pretty notes and you feel self-conscious that yours aren’t like that, then it tricks you into feeling like you’re bieng productive, when you’d probably feel less anxious and get more done if you didn’t. I’ve read quite a few young people writing about how it ended up distracting them and stressing them out even more, and I can completely see why. When you develop a following it starts to feel like you have to have a certain aesthetic and compete with all that or people won’t respect your study. We never see ugly notes on studyblr, or messy desks, people who are just quietly studying with cheap pens, and non-designer laptops in a dull-looking corner at home really don’t get to see that it’s perfectly normal.
Personally, I usually feel that ‘work time’ and ‘play time’ are better when well separated. It’s far less tempting to let one bleed into the other, and it gives you a break from thinking about work. When you’re meant to work, do it properly and efficiently. When it’s rest time and you want to be creative, do it guilt-free, knowing you’ve gotten your work for the day done. It’s probably better for creative projects to also not be ‘work related’ just so you don’t spend ALL your time thinking about notes. But in theory if you’re really good at keeping things separate, or really love bullet journals and pretty notes, prettifying them could be a ‘spare time’ hobby once the work was done.
My advice as a study-grandma (or maybe study aunt?) is this: learn to be efficient. It will save you SO much time, and so much stress if you learn to work smarter, not harder. If you’re young, it’s probably the case that you aren’t really covering that much material in real terms, and you have the time to pore over it for ages, but that is time you are never getting back, so think about whether you need to be spending 5h per page of perfectly turned-out revison notes for what is effectively 1 slide in a powerpoint presentation. Of course you can spend as long as you want on notes, it’s your life, but imagine what else you could be doing with that time, and how much faster your studying would go if you focused on learning rather than craftsmanship. Your time is valuable, whether you are 13 or 23 or 33 because you will never get it back, and if anything, I’ve learned to value my free time a lot more the longer I study. Enjoy your free time, because it’s really valuable and it’s only going to shrink as your responsibilities increase.
* By which I mean those of us over 21. I have little siblings the age of a lot of studyblr, and I know how different all our experiences with study are, depending on where on the educational timeline we are.
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