#lychiestudy

[indigo-shades]

⭐️I’ve been so busy with my junior year. I’m so glad to be a senior now! I hope you enjoy my Sailor Moon theme ⭐️

[optomstudies]

Hello! I was wondering if you have any tips for studying when you have insomnia? My average amount of sleep a night is roughly 3-5 (often broken) hours and when it comes time to study I'm so exhausted I just can't. I've tried meletonin but it doesn't work, and sleeping pills can't be prescribed because of a family history of addiction (not me personally, my uncles). I don't know how to study like this despite having had insomnia for 5 years now. Any advice would be appreciated, thank you!

Improving Your Quality of Sleep for Studying

Just a PSA, people often misuse melatonin and then think that it doesn’t work. You still need to do all the environmental things to help the melatonin set in e.g. closing blinds, no night lights, stop using technology for at least 1 hour prior to sleeping, etc. Have a read of Sleeping Early and Waking Up Early. 

Focus on exercising and meditation techniques as well. Research has shown that exercise improves the sleep quality of those with chronic insomnia. 

Also, I’m not a sleep scientist by far (I’m sure your GP/sleep doctor has already advised you on treatment/management), but on particularly restless nights I will literally force myself to keep my eyes closed and lie in bed, and force myself to clear my mind repeatedly. I have once tried doing this for two hours straight on a day I stupidly decided to drink coffee at night. Eventually I did fall asleep. 

You should also follow the tips I’ve written for people who have to study whilst dealing with sickness (listed here again for convenience):

Studying in the Worst Case Scenarios

Cramming Tips That Actually Work

Catching Up with Your Studies

Dealing with Bad Results

Being Realistic about your Results

Finishing an Assignment While Sick

Thinking Differently to Prevent Stress 1 and 2

Dealing with Guiltiness when You Haven’t Studied

Dealing with Mental Health at University

Studying With Depression

Studying With Anxiety

Studying When You’re Sick

Hope that helps!

[etudiea]

03.03.18

I meant to post this two days ago, oops,sorry!!!!

Anyways, this month’s bujo theme is zentagles- a great time waster!

[optomstudies]

Hi, Im a 1st year uni student and Ive got an exam in a few days. Ive just finished my assignments so I havent had much of a chance to study. Its a 3 hour exam and I have to write 4 essays from any of the 9 questions were given about topics weve studied throughout the semester, and we can take in 2 a4 sheets of notes. The thing is Im terrible at essay exams. Any other kind I can ace but essays have always been my downfall. I dont mind what grade I get, I just want to pass. Do you have any advice?

Hey there! I should note that it’s a bit late to start now unfortunately, you can’t really cram university exams, so what you’ve got now is probably what you’ll go with. University essay marking is also notoriously difficult. 

How to Study for an Essay Exam

Make a mindmap of the concepts you need to know for each essay. Just sketch a quick one since time is of the essence. Essentially you want to get an idea of how the concepts interrelate, especially cause and effect since you’ll basically be trying to argue and convey your ideas, interpretations, and explanations, in the essay. 

The majority of your time should be dedicated to planning how to argue and elaborate upon the examples you need. Write down in dot points your main arguments by breaking down the keywords of the questions. This knowledge should (hopefully) come from the knowledge of the topics you’ve been learning from your classes. The essay basically fleshes out your understanding, so if you’re lacking an understanding of the concepts, you’ll probably be struggling a bit. 

If required (i.e. if you don’t know how the concepts interrelate), try and skim read and check the notes you should have been making in the margins of your readings. These should form your personal interpretations for the arguments. 

Once you’ve written down dot points of how the essay should flow out, then you should take a small break and then come back thinking critically as an essay marker; try and think of counter arguments they might make, or think of where your arguments are a bit weak/ unsupported by evidence. Make sure you put a stopper on any leaky arguments. 

On your cheat sheets, you ought to write down examples of what you want to delve into - particularly any quotes or specific factual information e.g. dates and minutae. The notes are intended to take away the memorisation process from your studying. 

I should add that my degree was a science degree and so if any humanities majors want to add any useful pointers to please do so. 

[optomstudies]

I get good grades, I suck at Algebra and Bio, but I just study harder on those subjects. History and English, on the other hand, have always been just one of the things i'm good at. I don't study, and I ace every test. It's the school work that gets me. I'm always trying to do good in those other classes, I forget about those two. Now I have 2 D's in classes I should be getting A's in. Any advice on how to bring them up? 1 has hw every night,and the other we rarely do anything Part 1

(part 2) I've only forgotten to turn in a few assignments that i'm unable to make up. It's just hard to focus on classes i'm good at, you know? I just don't want to fail because I got a big head. I mean, I'm proud of myself, because like I said, I study a lot better in the classes that I NEED to. I have a B+ in each of those classes. (Which is a big improvement from last year's confused-as-fudge child) But I just don't have time for English and History, and all I see is "oh study more"

Hmmmm, a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, but are you really sure you’re good at a subject that you’re getting Ds in? Or is that just your ego? 🤔 You can be naturally gifted in a certain area, but if you’re not paying attention in class or revising it, you’ll still perform badly. It’s like the saying goes, 

hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard

Honestly it’s all about balance, not about studying more. Like I mentioned before, I used to be really good at understanding concepts in biology and agriculture but had absolutely no talent in English, so I spent about 3 times more time on English than I did in other subjects -- 

Pseudomaths, but 3 times 0 is 0. My point is there’s no use in studying excessively in 1 subject and not doing anything for another subject, because you end up shooting yourself in the foot like you’ve done now, and get a B+ in Algebra/Biology and Ds in History/English. 

It’s much better if you take a bit off time off Algebra/Biology and get B- in them and As in History/English. 

Use a diary if you’re forgetting to turn in assignments - you’re not paying attention in History/English if you don’t even remember when assignments are due. Let the diary do the work for you instead. 

If one of the subjects has homework every night then you need to schedule the time into your study sessions. I’d advise you to do it as soon as you get home and then forget about it if you hate thinking about it so much. 

Anyway, buck up and hope that helps! ^_^

[indigo-shades]

ig: study_polarbear  

[optomstudies]

Hi! I'm currently doing an 30 day exam prep challenge and I'm trying to come up with a reward system. I've set them for 5, 10, 15 days in a row and after every exam date from then. Do you use a system for rewards? I mean, not just little treats after a productive day but rather bigger ones and maybe increasing their value progressively to motivate myself to stay on track and not necessarily taking a lot of time from my study routine. Thanks in advanced, your studyblr is my absolute fave! ♥

Question: What do you reward yourself with when you study?

Answer: Mostly, nothing.

Interestingly enough, I have personally never had a rewards system in place. 

You know the gummy bears thing where people place a gummy bear after every paragraph/page? I just always felt more sickened by having food rewards than rewarded :L I actually don’t really know why this was the case, so I thought about it a little and this is the post haha 

When I say rewards here, I’m not talking about breaks - you need breaks to continue studying. I’m talking about little sweeteners like food, catch ups with friends, going out, etc. 

When I studied, I relied a lot more on intrinsic motivation and the end goal in sight. 

I would study something in order with the idea/feeling of memorising and understanding a topic 100%. I never really had to even think about the bigger endgoal, which was scoring 95%+ in an exam, coming 1st in rank, becoming the best optometrist I could be, etc. (although occasionally when I was tired I did think about it). 

I saw studying more as something I had to do than something that I had to labour through

so I think that made a big difference for me. I see so many students trying to use a reward system, but oddly enough I never really had to. Studying was an act of discipline for me; I received no rewards for completing it, but for doing it. I remember now how one of my classmates got a new car from her parents for getting into a law degree….. I wasn’t even expecting some extra pocket money from my parents LOL I have just never needed to be rewarded for what I think is something rewarding in itself, i.e. being proud of yourself for learning well. Perhaps my parents had something in the way they raised me so that I thought like that?

One tip I try and give, but is easier said than done, is to just think only about the task itself. 

I always did this, so I never struggled with finishing study (at least in high school LOL). The best way I can describe this is like when you’re trying to figure out a particularly difficult maths question. In that moment, you aren’t really thinking about anything but trying to solve it. 

In fact, thinking about rewards or goals would often distract or discourage me from the task itself, and I would quickly run out of motivation (when it has actually been shown that willpower is not a finite resource; it is only a finite resource when you think that it is). 

The other important thing is that you need to break the work up into small chunks. 

This is the main difference I found with my studying at university. When I had so much to do, even just focusing on the task itself became difficult, because there was just no end to the amount of work that I had to do. At least at the pace that I did things there wasn’t enough of a break, because as soon as I would plod through one assignment, the next one would come up. I think when you are dealing with the workloads you face in university, working in short, effective bursts is much more effective. 

In this case, I did find that I would also need discipline, because rewarding myself with playing games/watching videos would actually be a lot more toxic because physically I wouldn’t really get a break in the true sense of the word. 

That’s not to say that a rewards system is not a valid way to motivate yourself. Whatever works to get you to study and do well academically. I’m just trying to share a somewhat subconscious part of my own studying methods. 

Follow optomstudies for original posts and study masterposts! Links: all originals + langblr + masterposts + web directory!

[indigo-shades]

First bullet journal of the summer