THE MONTH OF HELL weeks is looming and I can already imagine my planner filling up with big, bold, underlined reminders of back-to-back deadlines and test schedules.
Being a college student for six semesters now, I know very well the downsides of cramming, from breaking out, to having sluggish-looking skin, to feeling depressed because of a bad grade.
Before you find yourself shaking and palpitating as you guzzle cups of coffee to stay awake, allow me to share with you my tips on how to survive hell week, which I learned the hard way by repeatedly committing a horrible cramming mistake.
Plan ahead
There would be nothing to cram if everything is well-scheduled! My sister graduated from college with a Latin honor. The best tip she shared with me was the importance of having a calendar or a list of your tasks. Write down your requirements on your organizer or post a list of them on your corkboard. This way, it would be easy for you to check the things you should accomplish and which of them you should prioritize. It’s also important to set deadlines for yourself to ensure that your tasks won’t pile up.
There is no ‘later’
Hell week is the best time not to believe yourself when you say: “I can put off this work for later.” You can’t—it’s hell week!
Discipline yourself and finish your work as early as you can. When reviewing for an exam, make sure that you take at least a 10-minute break every 50 minutes. This will allow your brain to process and retain the information you studied.
Get off the Internet!
The Internet is the quintessential distraction. Sacrifice Facebook and Tumblr; you can always go back to the pages you had missed while you were working for a good grade.
If your schoolwork requires you to connect to the Internet, I suggest that you to go to http://www.marktaw.com/getbacktowork.htm. It’s a page developed by Mark Wieczorek to reinforce productivity. Make the page the first tab on your window as a reminder that you should be doing something far more important than changing your Facebook status or having more reblogs. If you think that’s a bummer, just imagine having to repeat a subject for the next semester. Now that’s more a bummer.
Get enough sleep
You would never know what a sleep-deprived brain could do to you. Once, when I went to school without getting enough sleep, I found myself unable to remember the concepts I studied and even my teacher’s name.
According to Dr. Sean Drummond of University of California San Diego: “Sleep deprivation significantly impairs attention, working memory performance, and our ability to drive. It has the same effect as alcohol does.”
Though sometimes it seems like staying up late to work on a paper or to study for a test is a good idea, better rest your head instead.
Optimism is key
Whining about the amount of tasks you have surely won’t motivate you to work. Plus, every second you spend enumerating the reasons why not even Bionic Woman could survive your week is wasted time.
“What we say or write can strongly influence attitudes that we subsequently hold,” wrote Psychologist David G. Myers. Sometimes, all it takes is a shift in attitude. Affirm yourself that you’re capable, pray and carry on.
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