Mindfullness

Study Tips

Constant school work coupled with the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic has had an immense impact on us all. One of the things that have suffered the most, is the sense of motivation and its impact on mental health in students.

In order to help with that, Sanctuary will be doing their best to help students as much as possible.

Posts about a variety of topics related to studying and study tips will be uploaded on this page.

Importance of Schedules

What is a daily schedule?

So, when you say “daily schedule” it basically means dividing your time into blocks and assigning each block, a certain task. So, it's a simple yet effective “plan that gives a list of events or tasks and the times at which each one should happen or be done”.

Importance:

A daily schedule leads to more efficient and better time management: when you have organized your day into time-blocks, you know what needs to be done when. This reduces the chances of you procrastinating and wasting time, we usually procrastinate when we don’t have any aim/ target and rarely when we have a difficult/ boring task in hand. When you have blocked time for certain things, you basically set a target and that motivates you to do what needs to be done. This will allow you to have a deeper understanding of your everyday work and where your time is spent.

More discipline: After you start your day with at least one habit (timetable) and stick to it throughout the week. You'll be able to maintain your discipline, break all of your negative habits, and get organized with ease. That goes for your work, your thoughts, your emotions, your relationships, and everything else in your life. When you do something religiously with consistency, your personality also improves; thus, in this case, you become more disciplined.

How to Distribute Work?

There are many different ways to distribute work, each of them personal. The strategy that works for one person might be entirely useless for another, it is all personal and dependant on the individual.

One strategy that could be used would be to begin with having a timetable containing all due dates and assignments. (Check out the above post on schedules)

Once the timetable has been made, mark out the days wherein a specific subject would be high priority, due to a test or assignment.

Depending on the days wherein one subject is going to be worked on a lot, do not add in extra work for that subject. This will make the work seem monotonous and will be more boring to work on. Instead, have some variety.

Ensure that the timetable can be easily edited, and is fluid based on new tasks and/or tests becoming necessities. This might be easier if the process is done online.

Include mini-deadlines for assignments; for example, for an upcoming test, begin revising at least a week in advance, making your way through the content. This will ensure that all the content will be familiar by the time the last few days for revision arrive. During these days, focus mainly on active recall (revising through questions).

Distributing work is extremely important, as if one is unable to do that, then assignments tend to pile up and keep growing. The smaller deadlines help in at the very least beginning to do a task so that one can slowly chip away at it until it seems more manageable.

Goal Setting

Goals are extremely important, setting goals brings clarity to your mind and improves your decision-making skills; simply because knowing what you want keeps you away from mental clutter!!

Techniques for Goal Setting:

Set purposeful and audacious goals - When setting a goal, we should ensure that we know the purpose behind it and our goals are not “limited by our mindsets”. Asking yourself "why" is essential since it helps your mind understand why you're working on what you're working on. It makes you realize the goal's true worth and how it will affect your life!!

Long Term – Intermediate - Short Term Goals - Short-term goals are the immediate goals that help you achieve your intermediate goals. Your short-term goals can be as simple as submitting assignments on time or even scoring an A+ on all subjects. Intermediate goals are those that you think about achieving 6 months/ one year or even two years down the line. Your intermediate goal, if your short-term goal is scoring an A+ all subjects can be getting a score above 1500 on your SAT. Futuristic/ long-term thinking is crucial when setting your goals. Such goals can be goals that you wish to achieve 5/ 10 years down the line.

Specific College Application Tips

College applications are a large part of future schooling, and can often be very stressful as well. In order to hep with this, following are a couple of tips that could help.

Know your deadlines. Deadlines for everything are very important, and it is always a great habit to note down all deadlines. Make a list of all the colleges deadlines for essays, overall applications, teacher recommendations and others
When looking at universities, most places have a variety of different requirements. Some need English Proficiency Test such as the IELTS or the TOEFL, some require multiple college applications, the SATS or other tests. Always make a list of all the different requirements so that you can be sure you have completed everything required.
Be honest. This is a very important one. It is very important to be entirely honest on applications. All universities have ways to check the information that the student has submitted and can ask for proof at any time. Lying on college applications will not help at all, and if caught you can be flagged for academic dishonesty, so always be truthful.
College essays are very important. There are many sources that can help in writing a good college essay. Look at all of these, and make sure that the essay represents you as a person. Before submitting ask other people such as a college counselor to proofread the essay.

Exam Tips

With exams and large tests coming up, it is important to ensure that you are taking care of yourself as well as keeping on top of the seemingly endless workload. Some tips to do this are:

Make a planner – plan out all exam dates, test dates and mark out the topics and subjects that you are confident in, that you only need some working on, and those that require the most studying. This will allow you to prioritise and stay on top of your work. Keeping a planner also means that you will be able to stay calmer when approaching exam dates as you will be able to properly visualise what is completed and what needs to be worked on.
Active recall – active recall is one of the best ways to study. It is essentially the practice of asking yourself questions based on the subject matter. This will be helpful during exams as the studying method will be phrased in the same way as the questions that will be asked, so it will be easier to remember what you have learnt.
Take breaks – very often, we get caught up in the frenzy of studying and end up studying for such long periods at a time that not only do we stop learning at a certain point, but also end up more exhausted and unable to learn more. Instead, plan out 15 minute breaks every hour to allow your break some time to rest and catch up before starting to study again.
Relax – the day of the exam, instead of panicking thinking of all of the things that you have not done or wondering about what you will get or will not get, try to focus on something entirely different. The panic will only stress you out more and you will have a higher likelihood of forgetting what you do know during the exam. Instead, try to relax your mind and focus on simply doing what you know and focusing on the next on.