Hi Emma! Just wondering whether you have any tips for studying during the school holidays? My school finished for first semester on Friday and now I have three weeks of holidays before second semester starts, but I really need to study because I have my year 11 preliminary exams a few weeks after term starts. Any tips? xx
Hellooo! Here are a few things you could do:
plan out what you need to study - either print off your subject outline or make a list of things you’d like to cover. Even though it can be daunting, I found working through a list of topics and being able to cross them off really useful when trying to cover everything.
make a schedule that works for you - since it is holidays don’t force yourself to study every single day for multiple hours. I’d say trying to fit a couple of hours every few days is good. If you’re not going out too much, then you can obviously increase the amount. I like to plan my day out on a piece of paper or in my study schedule printable. I usually don’t strictly plan hour by hour but as a rough guide. I’ll try to put a flexible finish time and not underestimate how long a task will take. If I’ve put effort in to the schedule and then put it on display, I’m usually more inclined to follow it!
limit your times - this kind of goes with the above, but remember not to over schedule or spend after hour sitting at your desk. Have a productive hour or two (with breaks) and then you can move on. I think you’ll be more inclined to keep studying throughout your holiday if you’re not seeming to be sitting, bored all day. I usually say to myself “right, work between 10am-2pm (or whenever) then I can do something more fun!”. If you have a day without studying at all, don’t feel you’ve let yourself down either.
reward yourself - create a system to celebrate completing a selection of tasks. By rewarding your progress you’ll build an incentive to work and reinforce productivity (great for your self-discipline!).This is also important since it is your holidays and you should have a bit of time for fun.
track your progress - this could be on a calendar, a pre-made habit tracker or on an app like HabitForge or Forest. Seeing your progress can help your see that you’re not wasting your time and that it is working!
put it in perspective - often when it is holidays we will put things off and leave them till last minute. Whilst studying can get boring, think of the pay off - awesome exam results! By dedicating that bit of time throughout your holidays and actually getting on with it means you’ll be super prepared and not regretful that you spent the past few weeks doing random stuff that didn’t really need to be done.
I’ll link a few other posts that you might find interesting:
procrastination hacks
productivity and time management apps
how to create a holiday study schedule
my study method (is for HSC so works for preliminary!)
how I stay motivated and focused
removing distractions
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your exams and have a fun holiday :-)
