The Minimalist Physisist @theminimalistphysicist-blog - Tumblr Blog

Minimalist Mondays : Finding Focus

What’s important to you? What’s your goal? Where would you like to be this time next year?

Finding your focus is a very useful thing. It guides you, helps you plan your time, make decisions. Finding your focus can help you find clarity, commitment, and contentment.

So what is a focus?

I tend to think of my focus as a short-to-mid term goal, something I want to have done in the next 6 to 24 months that helps me towards a larger aspiration.

So, to find a focus, first you have to decide what your long term aspiration is!

Only you can know what that is for you, but I’ll give a few examples here to work with:

My own long term aspiration is to gain an academic research position in astrophysics, which has a lo of stepping stones to reach.

A common one is to travel, for a long period of time or to a distant place, which is perhaps impractical at best in the short term.

Another one many people have is starting up their own business, which certainly takes a lot of work and planning.

So, once you find your aspiration, how do you find your focus?

For me, after my straight line path took a large detour in 2015, I had to find a new way to achieve my aspiration. There was one lone Masters course that would accept me with the grades I would likely finish up with, and so my focus was that by 2016, I would have a place on that course. This needed 2 things

A successful application

Money for tuition

Though the rules have since changed, a the time student finance wouldn’t cover the style of course I was applying for, and so my first focus became to find a job and minimise spending in order to save the money for tuition. Once I had a job, I could work out through my budgeting how long it would take to save enough. This gave me an idea of which application cycle I should apply for, which than gave me a timeline for my second focus: writing a successful application.

My current focus is achieving a first-class Masters degree, in order to allow me to apply confidently for PhD positions in the next 2 years.

For someone who wanted to travel, their focus might also be money; To pay off debts or build savings to make their aspirations more achievable. Or it might be to seek out a more flexible job, one that can be doe remotely or gives more holiday time.

Someone looking to start their own business might look for experience in the area, look to build connections, or put a plan in place to build stock to begin their own store.

Whatever the aspiration, pick a single step that if successful would mean tangible progress towards your aspiration. Then your focus is on successfully making that step.

But why have a focus?

Because it informs everything else you do. When I was looking to build money up for my tuition, I had to say no to friend lunches or nights out if they went past my budget, even though I had all that money sitting in a savings account. Having a clear focus on taking a step towards my aspirations helped me say no. Helped coping with short-term discomfort for long-term happiness and fulfilment.

Even now, I might want to go shopping with my mum whenever she asks me, or stay in bed until noon because I’m not bound to a strict timetable by my flexible course, but doing does damage to me in the long term. Having my focus on the step I want to make can help me push through in the short-term, so I can be happy long-term.

So what are your aspirations? What step can you take this year to help you make them reality?

#minimalist mondays #focus #aspirations #goals #achiveyourgoals

Study Sundays : The Feynman Technique

What is the Feynman technique?

The Feynman technique involves writing out your knowledge of a topic as if you were teaching it to someone else, in order to find out for yourself what you do and don’t understand about a subject. You also find analogies and other ways of teaching it to yourself in the process, which helps with memorisation.

How to use the Feynman Techneque:

Pick A Topic Write the topic at the top of a new page (most tutorials ask for a new note book, but any blank page works fine. Find what works for you and fits your circumstances best; I use a powerpoint!).

Write Down What You Know as if you were explaining the subject to a student, at least a level below the level you’re learning at. So, if you’re doing an undergraduate degree, you want to be explaining it to someone who is at most in sixth-form (UK) / their last 2 years of High School (US). This will help you find what you understand well, and what you don’t.

Return To Your Study Materials when you get stuck. If you find a gap in your knowledge, go back and fill it! Read your notes, books, or even run a quick google search and read until you understand the point well enough to explain it simply. Then go back to writing.

Take it Further:

Once you have what you think is a good explanation of the material for yourself, it can help to have someone studying the same subject at your level or higher to try your explanation on, eg; other students, your subject tutor. They might spot gaps you didn’t notice, or help you expand your knowledge further. Also, if you use your explanation with another student, you might help them in the process!

I personally find the Feynman Technique very useful, and so it’s basically what this blog is all about! My Physics Friday videos are me making my explanations built using this method available, for others to use, but also for them to help me find gaps in what I know. In the end, it helps me and my audience learn together.

#Study Sundays #the feynman technique #studyblr #study tips #study hacks

Minimalist Mondays: My Story

What is minimalism?

Search for it on google, the definitions you’ll get is that of aesthetic minimalism. Admittedly, it’s an aesthetic I appreciate, as can be seen from my standard model mug, my black and white bullet journal and lab book. But anyone who’s visited my Instagram knows I’m too into colour to ever stick to it.

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”~ William Morris

Okay, so that’s something of an oversimplification, but it does generally get across the point:

Everything in your life should serve a purpose, but that purpose can be as simple as making you smile.

Two years ago, I moved out of my parents house to live with some friends (and one nightmare) for a year. At the time, I had no intention of returning home, and all of my stuff moved with me. It was a lot of stuff.

For the whole year, I never even unpacked most of it.

The Minimalists, in their TedTalk, talk about having something called a Packing Party. I had, accidentally, had one of my own. When, after a year that hadn’t gone at all to plan, it came time to move back home, something had to give. Not only had I proven that most of the things I had I didn’t even use; My larger bedroom had been given to my brother. I would be moving back into a smaller space than the one I left, and I’d never really even managed to fit into the old one.

I had to rethink my whole philosophy on Stuff.

In the process of moving, I got rid of most of the things I hadn’t unpacked. Still, that left me with my overflowing wardrobe, stacks of unused bedding, books I never planned on re-reading or never wanted to read in the first place, half-filled notepads and sketchbooks, boxes of pens and pencils, and bags full of sentimental items I never even looked at. Piles upon piles of things that did nothing except take up space.

I’m no shopaholic, to be clear. My clothes were largely hand-me-downs of family friends. The stationary acquired birthdays and Christmases and a family-wide attempt to keep me in university note paper. The rest were just built up over the course of living, and never throwing anything away ‘just in case’.

When I got home, I did a search for something like ‘How to de-clutter permanently’, which is how I fount The Minimalists, and minimalism, and a whole new way to get my shit together.

And it’s worked!

I’m not done. It’s a process, and there are still things I’m working to remove: Using up craft supplies via etsy sales, for example, and my books and clothes need someone with a car to have time to take me to the charity shop since it’d feel wrong just dumping them all in the trash. There’s a box of sentimental items sitting in my wardrobe that my mum wants but has nowhere to keep, but even with that my whole wardrobe now fits in the wardrobe comfortable, which never happened before. I was always untidy, because tidying used to be a full day ordeal at a minimum. Now, it takes me a couple of hours at a weekend if I really let things get out of hand.

Somehow, I’ve even managed to clear a big enough space in this tiny room for a future hamster.

So that’s how I got the physical clutter out of my life. But how about minimalism of lifestyle?

Well, that’s next week.

#Minimalist Mondays #minimalism #lifestyle #simple living #declutter

Hello World

Hey! New year, new project. Let’s see how long I can keep this going.

Name’s Giorgia, I’m an astrophysics student from England. I plan to be blogging about physics, studying, and minimalism, but I’m open to talking about anything else people might want to ask about. Questions about Quasars? Ask away! Want to know my favourite pizza topping (Hint: It’s controversial)? Ask that too. I’m all about connecting with people. That’s one of the reasons I chose tumblr over wordpress (the others being infinite free theme customization and the ability to change my URL if I ever feel the need).

I started this blog for two reasons; First, I love science and want everyone else to love science with me. Second, it’s basically like a publicly accessible account of me using the Feynman Technique to revise the topics I’m studying.

I’m throwing minimalism into the mix because it’s pretty useful in informing how I organise myself, and I feel like it could be useful to a lot of other people too.

Links to my other social media accounts are in the sidebar of my blog for anyone who might be interested in seeing what I do when I’m not blogging. I’ll likely host any video posts I make over on YouTube, too, even if they’re for a post here.

#meet the blogger #astrophysics #minimalism #science #studyblr