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Time management
Here are a few ideas: Homework: Get into the habit of doing it as soon as possible. Do it in free time at school. Do it as soon as you get home, rather than later in the evening when your brain is getting ready to doze off. Don't allow yourself to have negative thoughts about homework - just do it and get it over with. Enjoy the rest of the evening. Get your family's agreement that you are not to be disturbed while you're studying. Do you work on weekends? Consider it, because research shows that 60 minutes of study during the day is the equivalent of 90 minutes of study at night. Experiment with transferring some of your work from a weekday evening to a weekend morning. Social life: If you have friends, they will call you at all hours. Have an agreement with them that you work at certain times at home during which you are not available. Switch off your mobile at these times. Television: There's some great shows on T.V. and there's
a load of rubbish too. Make a decision that you're not going to watch
rubbish (whatever that means to you). Enjoy the good shows and get rid
of the shows where you're not really paying attention. Try limiting
yourself to a maximum of two shows a day, preferably less. Use learning cycles: These are for planning your study time and they're a great way to help you focus on your studies - when you get down to them! (I talk more about them on the section learning cycles ) Be early! It's easy to get into the habit of doing things just in time. The problem is that it's stressful and often doesn't work - you're late more often than not. I'm talking about homework, coursework, appointments and so on. Just make a decision to be early for everything. If you have an appointment, take along something to read while you are there waiting. Make a timetable for the year: Include dates for exams, tests, handing in coursework and other deadlines, holidays and other events. Basic Time Management. The most useful advice I know of is to break a task into small steps and do them one at a time with a break in between - perhaps with a reward for completing each step. I know this sounds rather simple, but I'm talking about breaking things down into really small bits - tiny bits that may only take a minute. This helps you to start on a project or task that seems too big at first. It's all about motivating yourself to start. Once you start on something, it's not so difficult to keep going. Plan in chunks: Most students work for too long at a time. The ideal way to plan an evening of work is the chunk everything into 20-30 minute segments or, better still, use a learning cycle. Your attention will begin to wander if you don't - even though you may not be aware of it. Also, your memory works best just after you start and just before you finish; so if you increase the starting and finishing parts, you will make the best use of your brain power. Don't waste time looking for your stuff: Collect everything you need for a subject and keep it together. You can use a ring-binder, box-file or whatever. Just make sure everything is in its place. Have sections for school worksheets, notes, revision notes, homework, coursework, internet printouts, individual topics, exam papers and questions, etc, etc. Make up your own system so that you can find anything easily. [-> next, go to the section on Learning resources ] |
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