Alex @queerstudie - Tumblr Blog

How to Fix your Sleep Schedule

We’ve all been there. You’ve been pushing back your bedtime for an entire week and now you feel exhausted and you don’t think you can function as well as you normally could. You just want to get enough sleep again, but how?

Make small changes

It’s a lot easier to push back your bedtime than to push it forward—but it’s not impossible. You just have to take it step by step. Go to sleep 15-30 minutes earlier every night until you reach your desired bedtime. You could try going to sleep much earlier than your regular time, but according that doesn’t usually work out. If you’re waking up later than you want to, you might also want to try waking up 15 minutes earlier each morning until you get up at the desired time.

I remember there was a week this semester when I went to sleep at 1am for several days in a row (I usually sleep at 11). I was sleep deprived and exhausted and I tried to sleep at 8 to catch up on lost sleep, but I couldn’t. I just laid in my bed for an hour until I gave up trying to sleep and decided to work on some homework until I felt sleepy again. What I should’ve done was go to bed 15 minutes earlier each night until I could go to sleep at 11 again.

Adjust exposure to sunlight

Exposure to adequate amounts of sunlight is key to helping our bodies maintain their circadian rhythm, which is the process that regulates our energy levels during the day and tells us when to be awake and when to go to sleep. Sunlight helps our body produce optimal levels of melatonin, a hormone that makes us feel sleepy at night. Studies have shown that people get better quality sleep in the summer because there is a greater exposure to light.

That being said, you should expose yourself to more light during the day to get better sleep at night. This might mean waking up earlier so you don’t miss hours of sunlight in the morning.

At night, you should reduce your exposure to any sort of light - both natural and artificial - so that your body knows it’s time to not be awake. I personally turn down the lights (and only have my fairy lights on) after 10:30 pm. When you’re trying to get back into your desired sleep schedule, you could aim to turn down the lights 30 minutes before your desired bedtime for that day.

Don’t eat too close to bedtime

You should wait 2 - 3 hours between dinner/your last meal and bedtime. I would talk about how studies show that eating too close to bedtime can possibly damage your health, e.g. causing reflux when you’re lying down, but that’s all been said before. The only thing I’d like to reiterate is that you sleep better when you wait after you eat. But as for my own logic on why you shouldn’t go to sleep when you’re full…

When you wait a few hours after you’ve had your last meal, before you go to bed, you won’t go to bed full, meaning that in the morning, you’re likely to be hungry. I don’t know about you, but I can’t go back to sleep when I’m, like, starving, so being hungry when I wake up causes me to resist sleeping in.

Don’t sleep in

You would think that sleeping in is, in fact, good for catching up on sleep. In reality, it doesn’t make you stop sleeping late, since you’d probably still spend the same amount of time awake. Instead, once you wake up, you should stay up, and don’t go back to sleep. You’re likely to get sleepy at an earlier time, and this will help you push forward your bedtime.

Resist napping

Resisting naps also has a similar logic to not sleeping in. If you take a nap, you’ll feel more energetic and night, and you might not be able to fall asleep as soon as you wanted to. If you resist taking a nap, however, you’ll be more tired at night, and you’ll fall asleep more easily.

Be strict with yourself

Finally, the key to having a good, consistent sleep schedule is to be strict with yourself. Don’t let yourself stay up for just 5 more minutes because you still have a ‘small’ task to take care of. When it’s time to end the day, end the day.

Maybe it’s hard for you to be strict with yourself since you can’t justify going to sleep over completing whatever task or responsibility you have left. Well, here’s my logic:

You could stay up 5 more minutes and risk extending that to a few hours or so in attempt to finish something. There’s no guarantee that you’ll finish it, and you might just lose all those precious hours of sleep for nothing, since you’ll wake up in the morning tired and unable to effectively do the task you wanted to do; or

You could stop everything you’re doing and sleep on it. You wake up in the morning feeling refreshed and clear-headed and ready to tackle on your tasks for the day. You find a new way to think about the task you were stuck on, and you finally solve it in less than half an hour.

I do realize that this only applies if the task isn’t super urgent. Let’s say you have a project due 11:59 PM and you’re rushing to finish that. In this case, the core problem is probably something else: an inability to manage your time, or procrastination. If that’s the case, you might want to check out my posts on how to beat procrastination and how to create an efficient (revision) schedule. The latter post is tailored for exam preparation, but the main ideas are the same for general scheduling (there’s a recap at the bottom if you just want to know the main ideas).

Additionally, you might wanna check out my post on my night routine.

And that’s all I have for you today! Hope this was helpful, and if you have any questions, feel free to drop me an ask or message me. Have an awesome day :)

eintsein

Hey guys, so I’ve seen some posts around about daily routines so I thought I’d share my own. I consider myself to be great at being productive even early in the morning, and here’s how I achieve that. Hope this is helpful, and feel free to ask me questions if you have any!

eintsein

SOURCES + LINKS

Dr. Bradberry, Travis. (January 15, 2018). “How to make yourself work when you don’t want to.” Retrieved from: https://medium.com/the-mission/how-to-make-yourself-work-when-you-dont-want-to-f4f251a85514

MacLellan, Lila. (January 15, 2018). “How to stop procrastinating.” Retrieved from: https://work.qz.com/1159212/how-to-stop-procrastinating/

Sun, Michael. (February 17, 2014). “Psychological Skills: Changing your Emotions - An Intro to Cognitive Reappraisal.” Retrieved from: https://www.psychologyinaction.org/psychology-in-action-1/2014/02/17/psychological-skills-changing-your-emotions-an-intro-to-cognitive-reappraisal

My masterposts, infographics, printables, + more!

eintsein

A friend once asked me how I manage to do my tasks so efficiently. I wrote a 500-word essay in 20 minutes. I finished my math homework and studied for a quiz in the half hour before morning assembly. I sleep at 9 pm on most nights. But how can I possibly achieve that?

I’ve seen people, even good students, check their phone every minute or two as they’re studying. I’ve seen students “study” for six hours straight, meaning taking down some notes then watching a YouTube video then reading their textbook then opening Instagram… you know what I mean.

My advice is to commit to whatever you’re doing. Not too long ago, another friend asked me, “Jo, do you ever get distracted at home?” to which I replied, “Distracted by what?” They told me about how they always have the urge to check their phones, talk to their friends, or get some food. I can’t say I never get distracted, but it very rarely happens to me because I focus on what I’m doing–and only what I’m doing. Here’s how:

1. During the time I allocate for working, I turn my phone to airplane mode (with WiFi switched off, of course). No messages or notifications will distract me from what I’m currently doing. Recently, though, I’ve left my phone on in case there’s anything important. There might an RMUN photoshoot tomorrow, or a Physics quiz, or a music showcase. I know myself well enough to know that I have the discipline to do nothing more than glance at the notification. However, if this isn’t true for you, then I suggest you keep your phone on airplane mode.

2. When I allocate time for relaxing, that’s all I do. No homework. No textbooks. No opening emails as they come. Just me and a good book or Photoshop or the piano or something. That way, I can satiate my thirst to relax within the half hour or so and not crave more when I start working

As for music, it’s been proven that music makes you less productive when trying to recall and absorb information (studying, in other words). Music only makes you happier when you’re doing things but not more productive.

By this, I don’t only mean which ones are most urgent, but which ones you can’t accomplish anywhere other than at home. For example, let’s say you have these three tasks: a) research about structural unemployment; b) write a poem with the theme of death; c) answer some questions about quantum physics; d) do a problem set about implicit functions; and e) memorize a set of chemical reactions. This is how I would do them:

Write the poem on the way to school. Maybe this is just because I like poetry. And because I can’t write when other people are around. I’d probably get a first draft done by the time I get home.

Do the research about structural unemployment. My school’s WiFi is terrible.

Answer the quantum physics questions. The new information is still fresh in my brain and doing the homework will help me revise, easing the process of spaced repetition.

Memorize the chemical reactions before I go to bed. Studying before you sleep is supposed to improve your memory, and since my memory is terrible, that’s exactly what I’ll do.

Do the implicit functions problem set as soon as I get to school the next morning. Math is undoubtedly my best subject, and it’s very refreshing to do math at 6:45 AM in the morning.

If you saw the pattern, I assigned each task a time slot when I would be most productive. I also did them from easiest to most difficult to the easiest again. Because everyone works differently, I suggest you find out which types of tasks are the most difficult (memorizing, in my case) and which types of tasks require a certain environment (e.g. requiring WiFi for doing research).

I guess that’s pretty much self-explanatory. I like to nap right after I get home from school if I’m feeling especially tired. As for breaks, I prefer to take them between tasks instead of every 25 minutes because of my high study inertia.

Commit to what you’re doing

Delegate and prioritize

Give yourself shorter deadlines

Take breaks!

And that’s it! Hope this guide to efficiency was helpful in some way. I do believe that by following these four steps, you can accomplish all your tasks in a much shorter amount of time. If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to drop me an ask!

eintsein

College Note-Taking System

Having cohesive and effective notes is one of the key skills I think one should have, especially in an academic setting. When you’re receiving a ton of information each day, you want to be able to keep track of that and remember what you’ve learned. I’m constantly trying out ways to make my note-taking more effective and tailored to my needs. Here’s what my note-taking system looks like so far.

Quick note: click on the images for better quality!

Class Notes

Taking notes in class is an invaluable way to keep track of the new knowledge you’ve gained. However, depending on the mode in which the lecture material is conveyed, I take my notes differently. Here’s a summary of how I take my notes for each type of lecture, as well as some examples from the classes I’m taking now.

Slides (e.g. Macroeconomics)

Macroeconomics is a class in which you should be able to intuitively understand a lot of concepts but also remember a lot of things. Because of this, I’ve tailored my note-taking method and habits to achieve that goal.

I write my notes by hand because handwriting is more effective in committing things to memory.

As for what I actually do - and this is what I’ve done for other classes in which the professor/lecturer uses slides:

Read/skim over the slide.

Read each bullet point as the professor goes through them.

Copy it down if it’s straightforward or write it down in a structure and diction that I understand better (not necessarily in my own words - sometimes it’s just restructuring, e.g. splitting things up or joining different bullet points together).

Take note of any other important details the professor says about any particular point unless I think it’s intuitive or common sense.

Here’s an example from a Macroeconomics lecture.

Oral Presentation (e.g. Anthropology)

During classes in which the professor just speaks and doesn’t use much visual material, I listen before I write instead of attempting to write down every single detail mentioned.

Also, I type up my notes instead of handwriting them since the exams are all open-book so I don’t really have to commit things to memory.

Here’s what I do:

Listen for a cue that tells you what this particular part of the lecture will be about (and write it as a heading).

Write down main ideas and their supporting facts/details. If the facts/details come before the main ideas, then I’d usually draw an arrow.

Write down ideas and details from readings in their own section/subsection.

Sometimes, my professor also shows short clips in class, in which case I’d write down the message that I think the clip was meant to convey, as well as things that the professor points out that I didn’t think of on my own.

I’d also look up concepts/ideas/people/events (in real time) that are important to my understanding of the lecture material.

Here’s an example of a Google Docs document from an Anthropology lecture.

Demonstrations and Sample Problems (e.g. Computer Science)

Classes in which the lecture is mainly going through demos and problems are kind of tricky, because you want to know and understand what the professor is doing, but you also don’t want to be writing down every single step that’s being executed. Here’s what I’ve found to be the most effective so far:

If there are any, I import the slides/handout onto OneNote and annotate directly on the slide. If not, I just write down things like definitions, important concepts, and syntax-related things.

I focus on understanding what the professor’s doing with the demo or problem.

I then summarize the steps they took and

Write down comments and points they brought up, e.g. common errors, desirable habits/practices.

Also, these kinds of classes are usually classes in which you’d learn better when you actually do problems yourself, so I definitely learn more when I do assignments and labs than when I’m in class.

Here’s an example from a Web Programming lecture.

Here’s one from an Object Oriented Programming and Data Structures class. I often draw things to help me visualize the general points.

Rewritten Notes

My rewritten notes have definitely changed a lot since high school. Since most of my classes don’t require a lot of memorization, I organize my notes in such a way that they’d be easy to index or find information from. Here are some of the ways I do that:

Establishing a Visual Hierarchy

Having a well-defined hierarchy helps me flow through my notes really well as i read them. It helps me organize information like a mind map without actually making a mind map - I know the big topics and their subtopics and sub-subtopics and details … basically it’s easier to see how these ideas fit together.

But why don’t I just make mind-maps? See, the thing is, a lot of my notes require sequential or linear thinking, e.g. in macroeconomics it might be the sequence of events following a change in the economy, or in computer science it might be a general algorithm for solving a certain type of problem, or it might be proving or deriving a certain equation. These sorts of things just generally don’t work well with mind maps. Instead, establishing a visual hierarchy in my notes helps me organize different ideas while retaining the linear nature of the information.

Here’s what the hierarchy looks like.

Here is an example from my Web Programming class, which is a purely project-based class, so no prelims or exams. As you can see, I draw rectangles around important terminology so that I can easily find them while I’m working on a project. I also include examples from in-class activities as well as notes on syntax so I have an idea of how to implement certain things. These examples and notes are further grouped by terminology/concept.

Structuring Them for Easier Flow

My syllabi for my college courses are nowhere near as detailed as the syllabi for my high school courses - those of you who take/have taken Cambridge exams would know. In college, my syllabi are only lists of topics and not what you’re expected to know for each topic. Because of this, I have to find a way to arrange information so that I can achieve the most comprehensive and cohesive understanding of that topic, i.e. so that the flow of my notes is similar to the flow of my thinking.

For example, in my economics notebook, I like to have the details first (e.g. the separate markets: the goods market, the assets market, and the labor market) and then the big picture later (IS-LM-FE). Some people prefer the other way around - seeing the big picture and then going into the details - which I can understand and have done myself for certain topics.

Making Use of Proximity and Spacing

I very much dislike notes without good use of spacing and grouping things together. Keeping related ideas in visual proximity helps your brain (or at least mine) organize this information. It’s also a lot easier to find things and visualize your notes when they’re not just a huge chunk of text.

One thing I should probably mention is that I don’t use colored pens anymore because it just takes a lot of time to switch pens and think of a color palette. I also don’t have much use for it. In the past, I used color to help me memorize and group things in different categories, but now, I’ve found that there aren’t a whole lot of categories I need to keep track of, and when I do, I can do so with just one pen but changing the style of the text.

And that’s what my note-taking system currently looks like. It’s working well so far, but I still think there are other things I could try out that might be a better fit.

So yeah, hope this was helpful, and as always, feel free to drop an ask if you have any questions, or even if you have any suggestions or would like to share your note-taking system. Have an awesome week!

jefframos

Did I cut a trailer for Untitled Goose Game using Lizzo’s “Juice” simply because she says, “Blame it on a goose?“

Of course I did.

Here’s my original tweet, by the way.

dollsahoy

Here it is from the creator instead of an uncredited repost that people seem to think is official marketing

archived-nt

𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐳𝐲 🤟

eintsein

Flexible Time Blocking: A More Breathable Way to Get Things Done

I’ve met a lot of people who struggle with sticking to a schedule - myself included - so here’s one way you can get things done without restricting your spontaneity.

Linked: The ABCDE Method: Accomplish Tasks More Efficiently

Hope this helps!

endymionstudies

reblog this if you’re a university level studyblr

most of the ones i follow are high school level and i need more people my own age/education level!

sunriseofflutes-deactivated2021

adult emailing culture is overthinking how polite you sound and forgetting to send the attachments

eintsein

HOW TO APPROACH CLASSES A guide to getting the most out of your classes and lectures

By Eintsein

Design inspired by this post by @journalsanctuary

hxmidea

sometimes i watch youtube videos and halfway through i’m like you know what i don’t care and then i close it

sandandglass

natalie-mars

I don’t reblog much, but this is too well said not to.

themayfieldtreasury

This always gets a reblog.

brunnhildebi

with all this marvel hype i just wanna remind everyone that valkyrie is a bisexual character played by a bisexual actress and y’all can actually use the word bisexual to describe her! she doesn’t have to be queer or gay or sapphic and she definitely shouldn’t be described as a lesbian.

pegsephone

amazing that on a post reminding people to use the word bisexual to describe bisexual people, some of y’all are still tagging this with “well I think [term that isn’t bisexual] works too!”

thenightling

It’s the werewolf thing all over again. “She’s not bisexual if she’s in a relationship with a woman.” = “He’s not a werewolf if he’s in wolf form.” “She’s straight if she’s with a man.” = “He’s not a werewolf if he’s in human form.” And then there’s... “What if she’s monogamous?” Then she’s monogamous but still bisexual.

And people wonder why David Bowie went back in the closet for twenty years after coming out as bi in the 70s... He went back in the closet in 1983 and didn’t come back out again until 2002 or so because of how Americans act about bisexuality.

languill

It’s sad how much of what is taught in school is useless to over 99% of the population.

There are literally math concepts taught in high school and middle school that are only used in extremely specialized fields or that are even so outdated they aren’t used anymore!

flavoracle

I took calculus my senior year of high school, and I really liked the way our teacher framed this on the first day of class.

He asked somebody to raise their hand and ask him when we would use calculus in our everyday life. So one student rose their hand and asked, “When are we going to use this in our everyday life?”

“NEVER!!” the teacher exclaimed. “You will never use calculus in your normal, everyday life. In fact, very few of you will use it in your professional careers either.” Then he paused. “So would you like to know why should care?”

Several us nodded.

He picked out one of the varsity football players in the class. “You practice football a lot during the week, right Tim?” asked the teacher.

“Yeah,” replied Tim. “Almost every day.”

“Do you and your teammates ever lift weights during practice?”

“Yeah. Tuesdays and Thursdays we spend a lot of practice in the weight room.”

“But why?” asked the teacher. “Is there ever going to be a play your coach tells you use during a game that requires you to bench press the other team?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why lift weights?”

“Because it makes us stronger,” said Tim.

“Bingo!!” said the teacher. “It’s the same thing with calculus. You’re not here because you’re going to use calculus in your everyday life. You’re here because calculus is weightlifting for your brain.”

And I’ve never forgotten that.

c-is-for-circinate

THIS.

When it’s taught right, learning math teaches you logic and how to organize your brain, how to take a problem one step at a time and make sure every step can bear weight before you move to the next one. Most adults don’t need to know integrals, but goddamn if I don’t wish everyone making arguments on the internet understood geometric proofs.

Scientific concepts broaden our understanding of how the world is put together, which does not mean that most adults ever really understand how light is refracted through a lens or why spinning copper wire creates electricity–and they don’t need to. But science classes in general are meant to teach the scientific method: how to make observations and use them to draw conclusions, how to test those conclusions, how to be wrong and grow stronger from it.

History isn’t about dates and names of battles, it’s about people, patterns, things we’ve tried before and ought to learn from. It’s about how everything is linked, how changing one circumstance can lead to changes in fifty others, cascading infinitely. Literature is about critical thinking, pattern recognition, learning to listen to what somebody is saying and decide what it means to you, how you feel about it, and what you want to do with it.

Some facts matter: every adult should know how to read a graph, how global warming works, some of the basic themes and symbols that crop up in every piece of fiction. But ultimately, content is less important later in life than context.

The good thing is, students who learn the content are likely to pick up at least some of the context, some of the patterns of thinking, even if they don’t realize it. (The unfortunate thing is how the current educational system prioritizes content so much that a lot of students, and a lot of adults, don’t see the point in learning either, and teachers are overworked and held to standardize test grading scales such that it’s hard for them to emphasize patterns of thinking over rote memorization, etc etc etc, but that is a whole different discussion.)

moi-ennepe-deactivated20251213

thank u <3

bugkeeping

I havent seen anyone talk about this yet so im making a post.

So lets say you’re researching something for a paper (or just for fun) and the research paper you want to read is behind a paywall, or the site makes you create an account first, or makes you pay to download, or limits you to only 5 free articles, or otherwise makes it difficult for you to read what you want.