TIPS ON GETTING THROUGH LAST MINUTE WORK
So I don’t know about you guys, but I am forever guilty of leaving all my work till the last minute and then stressing over it on the night. First off, let me just tell you that in no way am I encouraging you to leave your work till the night before! It is probably the worst thing you could do to yourself, but we still do it anyway to put it off for as long as we can. So, if you are someone who is guilty of this or maybe you find yourself in this situation in the future, then I hope this will help you get through it!
Know your most effective studying environment
I’d say your environment is one of the most important factors of studying effectively. Know where you are able to study and do work comfortably and effectively without any distractions. You might study better in a quiet environment, for example, the library, or maybe one which has more background noise, like at a cafe, or at home! However, definitely don’t do work on your bed. It’ll just convince your body to cave in to it’s comfort and next thing you know, you’ll be deep asleep!
Some people are also able to study better with music! So decide whether or not playing music will help you focus on your task more, or if it’ll just distract you and make you have your own little music video!
Ignore your electronic devices
This is probably one of the biggest reasons why people get distracted while doing work. Whether it be your phone, your laptop, your mp3, your tablet, put that thing away! Put it in the drawer of your table so you won’t see it and get tempted to scroll through your social media apps, or if you really can’t control yourself, put it somewhere out of your reach or even in a different room! Or if you need it there for music or so on, turn off your wifi or put it on airplane mode so you don’t hear that constant ding! (sorry that was a lame attempt) of your notification, begging you to look at it. Obviously, if you have to use your laptop to write an essay or do research, then you cant put that away, so I found an extension for Google Chrome, where it basically blocks the sites that you want it to for however long you want! It’s called StayFocusd so definitely use that if you don’t think you’re able to stop yourself from getting off track.
Take a break
Okay, so I know you’re doing your work last minute, but breaks are still necessary. If you continue to do your work nonstop, you will eventually tire yourself mentally and therefore you won’t be able to work effectively. Your breaks don’t have to be long at all! 5 minutes should be enough time, and you can have a light snack like nuts, crackers or pretzels, and definitely drink water to keep yourself awake! An app you can use to time your breaks is Pomodoro! I’m sure most of you know what this is, but for those of you who don’t, it’s basically an app which you can download on your phone and it’s a timer which you can adjust, and you basically just turn the timer on, say for about 30 minutes, and you do as much work as you can and when the timer ends, you get your break! After your break is over, its back to work for another 30 minutes! I definitely think this will help a lot in relaxing you so you don’t stress out as much.
Studying: Highlighting & Notes
If you’re studying last minute, don’t read over the whole textbook. Look at your notes and highlight the key points so you don’t spend the whole night reading information which isn’t important. Go over past papers and questions to get an idea of what the exam is going to be like. If it’s easier for you, make flashcards! They’re so much easier to look at compared to just a whole chunk of information, which may be hard for your brain to process especially under stress. Having sticky notes will also help if you jot down a few extra pieces of information on the dot point, to further your understanding.
Essays: Plan
Writing essays is one of my absolute worst enemies, I hate it. Something I find which helped me write my essay quicker was to plan what I was going to right beforehand, whether it be just writing it down in dot points, or creating a mind map. Know your points before you start writing. Know what your thesis is going to be for each point and your examples. For your examples, it’s extremely helpful if you have your quotes and annotations ready for you on a separate sheet so you don’t have to look through the whole text to find what you want. Trust me, planning is a major help. It’s much better than writing off the top of your head as you go from scratch and having to sit there and think of a point to write. Also, if it helps, write your body paragraphs before your introduction. This means that you’ll be sure on what your points are and are then able to write a thesis which connects all your points.
SLEEP!
Don’t stay up all night trying to study! It has been scientifically proven that sleep helps with your memory and learning. Your brain processes all the information when you sleep so if it doesn’t have enough time to do that, how are you going to remember everything you worked so hard to remember? So get a good night’s rest and you can just study and look over it the next morning.
So overall, just save yourself the stress and don’t do your work last minute! But if you happen to fall under those circumstances, hopefully this lengthy post helped in some way!
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