Instead of staying awake all night:.Study the most difficult material early. Doing your hard work early in the day allows your brain to focus fully on the problem at hand, with fewer distractions. Also, you tap into your willpower reserves early super important because you have more willpower earlier in the day.
Maximize your brain’s peak performance time. It is within the first 4 hours after you wake up. This is the time when your brain can focus on analytical thinking that requires the most concentration. This can be reading, writing, coding, analyzing, critical thinking, or problem solving.
Get plenty of sleep. Ideally for students this means 7–8 hours. But if you manage only 5-6 hours, learn a tip from Einstein and Churchill and take a power nap to boost brain performance. It doesn’t have to be long — 20 minutes is optimal. Make sure to nap before 3 p.m. so you don’t disrupt your sleep schedule.
When it’s exam time, there’s nothing else to do except go through the books, one by one. Treat my bedroom as a prison cell. Only get up to go to the bathroom and to have lunch and dinner. Worry a lot. Feel anxious and stressed. The problem with this mindset is that we expect so much from our brain. It must function perfectly, it must focus all the time. Or else, everything is over. Failure is imminent. Exams will have to be retaken.
To better manage your time:
Use the timer on your mobile phone to divide your day. Work in 50-minute increments, followed by a 10-minute break. Use the time to read, take notes, do your homework, write essays or school projects.
Do short burst sessions to practice for exams. If you’re prepping for an exam, use the review questions from the textbook or given by your professor. Then, rehearse for the exam using the “Pomodoro” technique (25 minute work sessions, followed by 5-minute breaks) to give yourself a short time to answer each question.
Don’t forget to take every single break. Get away from your desk to boost memory. Have you ever heard of the “Zeigarnik” effect? It’s a concept in psychology that argues that we remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than the ones we already completed. During your break, choose activities that are not work-related: read several pages of a book, do a mini workout, run an errand, tidy up your room, prepare your lunch or a snack, or turn on some uplifting music to boost your mood.
In your notebook, divide up each page for notes, cues, and a summary. This is the Cornell Method of taking notes, and is an excellent way to visually divide up what you’re jotting down so you’re not writing paragraph after paragraph.
Write in a list format. Each line item or bullet is for a key concept, idea, or topic. Writing in list format saves time, enables you to skim the material, helps you locate information faster, and makes the review process easier. Don’t keep it black & white. Organize the words on each page with multi-colored pens, markers, or highlighters to emphasize the most important sections. Use specific colors to highlight top priority concepts, then pick other colors to identify second level priority items such as examples, additional information, or questions you may have about what you learned.
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