with love, anika

Hi everyone, and welcome to my blog !!

My name is Anika, and, here, I write mostly about my days and studyblr stuff (like study blogs and helpful tips for school)!! I’m here because I’m trying to be more productive and to romanticize a little bit my life, and I thought that having a digital diary/studyblr account could help me for that!!

~About me~

I’m currently a high school freshman

I live in Spain

I have loved reading since I was a little kid, and now I consider it one of my favourite hobbies!!

I also love drawing, specially people and animals in a cartoonish style

I’m really into taking cute notes and doing pretty bujo spreads… basically I like all that study and organisation stuff lol

I really like pastel and neutral colours, my favourite ones are light green and brown, and lilac♡

I have a diverse music taste, I listen to hip-hop, pop, kpop, lo-fi… and my favourite singer is Doja Cat

I like watching movies, specially the classics from the 90s and 80s, all the Disney ones and Studio Ghibli films!!

My favourite animals are cats, but I don’t have any :c

I’m into fashion, and I think that my style is trendy yet classic ☆

And that’s basically all!!! :D

Feel free to ask me anything or to talk if you want ✿~

I hope that you enjoy this journey as much as I do!!<3333

these past months i have been struggling with mental health due to some things that happened in my life. this made me lost a lot of motivation for school, my hobbies and, specially, this blog. i ran out of ideas, motivation to write and i also started to hate it a little bit because i felt that it didn’t represent myself anymore. that’s why i have decided to give up on this blog and to create a new one: @oyskio

i will post studyblr-related stuff there too, but the content will be more diverse.

it would be cool if you supported me in this new blog, only if u want ofc <333

~19.09.2021~

It’s been a while since I posted here and that’s because this week I have been fed up with a lot of assignments and some projects.

I have just started school and, unlike what I thought, this week I have had tons of homework and zero free time :(

I want to work on more master posts rn, but I have been struggling to organize my time and my tasks. However, when everything gets better, I will be able to post some tips, guides and things like that <333

Until then, all that you will see are going to be vlogs lol

Anyway, today has been a productive day!!!

I went out to have lunch with my family, I read two chapters of the book that I'm reading (1984 by George Orwell!!! It's so good, you guys should read it!!!) and I studied for two hours!!

The tasks that I got done are:

Taking notes of my dual diploma classes

Doing an assignment for one of my dual diploma classes

Finishing my technology class notes

I'm kinda proud of the fact that I was able to do all those tasks in a little bit less than two hours hehe

Tomorrow I'm just going to try to not drown in the sea of tasks and projects that I have

Take care♡

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Hey guys, how r u doing??

I just wanted to say that I am very thankful for all the support that I’ve been receiving lately.

I started posting here less than two weeks ago and yall have been very very nice to me, and I really appreciate that ✿

Unfortunately, I start school tomorrow, so I won’t be able to post so much because my studies are my priorities, I hope that u understand <33

However, I’m sure that I will manage to post some master posts or blogs every week, but u won’t have daily content, srry :c

Feel free to leave some questions or posts suggestions~

Studying for exams is something essential in students lives. We all spend most of our time preparing for those sheets of paper that we are so afraid of and, sometimes, we do it in the wrong way without even noticing it.

Some of us use study-to-pass methods, which aren't effective because you will end up forgetting everything that you studied!!

That's why we all should learn how to study in a way that we don't only pass the exam, but also remember everything (or most part of it).

So, here, I'm going to show you not only how to properly prepare for an exam, but also how to keep those things that you studied in your long-term memory, so you don't forget them!!

A little disclaimer: this is how I prepare for exams, but that doesn't mean that you have to prepare for exams like this too, and that's ok <333 Everyone is different, so our study and organization methods are. Just try this method and, if it doesn't work, you can try another one or even make your own!!

For being able to prepare properly, you will have to start studying from four to two weeks before the exam, it depends on how difficult you find the subject and how easy it is for you to study.

The steps to prepare for an exam are:

1.- Plan your study sessions

Planning our study sessions ahead is very important if we want to stay organized. But, how do we do that??

First, write a list of all the things that you will have to study for the exam.

In a calendar (it can be weekly or monthly) write which day you are going to study each of the things that are on the list.

Leave two or three days before the exam for revision, which means that you won't study, only review what you have already studied.

2.- Eliminate distractions

Before we start studying for an exam, we have to declutter our workspace. Put away the things that may distract you and leave only the stuff that you will need for your study sessions, such as your stationery, your laptop, etc.

Once you have ended with physical distractions, it's time to end with the virtual ones. Set time limits on your phone or delete some apps, and install website blockers on your computer.

Since we won't have anything that distracts us, it will be easier for us to stay focused.

3.- Start studying!!

Once you have done those steps, it's time to sit down, open your books and start studying.

Make sure that you follow your study plan correctly and that you don't procrastinate.

Each time that you finish studying and understanding very well a certain topic, cross it out on the list, so you know that you won’t have to put a lot of effort into it when you review it.

And when there's a topic that it's more difficult for you, mark it with a circle or something like that, so you know that you will have to review it more.

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Now, you just need to know how to properly study and review.

• Active studying vs passive studying

Usually, students that study actively tend to have better results than students that don’t.

By studying actively, you don’t only make sure that you understand a certain topic, but you also retain that information in your brain for more time, or in other words, in your long term memory.

So, you have to avoid passive study methods, such as only reading your notes, textbooks, etc.

You have to avoid the easy and effortless methods because they’re not the more effective.

Some active study methods are:

The 60 seconds review

After every class, take 1 min to write the two or three main ideas by memory.

Rewrite your notes

Write them in your own words, using keywords and simple definitions that are easy to memorise.

Test yourself

Before studying something, write some questions about the most important things and, after studying, answer them

Don’t memorise, learn

Try to explain a topic in your own words to make sure that you understand it. Once you do so, study it (if you do it in your own words too it’s better).

You can find more active study methods on YouTube by searching “Active recall”, but these ones are the ones that I use!!

All these methods force your brain to think about what you have studied or what you are about to start studying. This helps to keep that information in your long term memory.

• Review

As I said before, you have to leave some days before your exam to review all that you have studied.

By reviewing all the information, your brain remembers it and slowly starts to keep it in your long term memory (because reviewing is an active study method too!!).

The steps for reviewing in a proper way are pretty easy:

1.- Take a paper

Divide a paper into 5 sections:

Title of the topic

General information

Keywords and their definitions

Things you forgot

Corrections

2.- Write

Put away your notes and books and complete each section by memory except the ones of things you forgot and corrections.

3.- What went wrong?

Take your textbooks and notes and compare what you wrote with what it’s written.

Write the corrections in the “correction” section

Write the things you forgot in the “things you forgot” section

4.- Review

Just review what you didn’t remember or what you were wrong at.

5.- Repeat

Do the whole process again until you get it all correct.

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While you are studying for an exam, you have to consider some things that don’t have anything to do with studying, but that will help you to prepare properly and to succeed:

• Take breaks

Studying is very important, but resting is too.

When we study a lot of time, we end up feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, that's why we have to take breaks during our study sessions. They shouldn't be only breaks of ten minutes but of half an hour or so. Remember to don't use your phone or any technology on the breaks, because if you do so, you won't relax at all. Do a chill activity, such as reading, writing, drawing, painting, etc.

Also, by resting for a long period of time, your brain will be able to retain the stuff that you studied before more easily.

• Sleep enough time

We need to sleep because it gives us the energy that we need for the day.

You should sleep from 8 to 10 hours per day if you want to be fully rested, so stop sleeping just because you have to study isn't a good idea.

• Have water and snacks near you

Staying hydrated and eating is something VERY important for everyone.

It's normal to feel thirsty or hungry while you are studying, that's why I recommend having a water bottle and some healthy snacks always on your workspace to avoid standing up, going to the kitchen and, as a consequence, stop being focused on what you were doing.

(omg this is so long- I’m sorry lol)

I hope that you find this guide helpful!!!

Act like the person you want to become~

Have you ever felt like you have a lot of things to do and you want to do other things as well but you don't have enough time to do them all?? Well, that sounds like a time management problem.

Time management is the wise use of time. Being able to organize and divide our time is an ability that we all should learn because it will help us in all the stages of our lives.

That's why, here, I'm going to teach you a simple but effective way of how to manage your time in order to have an organized and productive life.

A little disclaimer: this is the way that I manage my time, but that doesn't mean that you will be able to manage your time like this too, and that's ok <333 Everyone is different, so our study and organization methods are. Just give this method a try, and, if it doesn't work, you can always find another one or create your own!!

1.- Make categories for your to-do's

In the first step, you have to analyze which type of to-do's you usually have, if they are academic, personal or etc., and make categories based on those types.

For example, if you always have to-dos related to school or college, you create an academic to-dos category.

2.- Think about the time you have

Now, think about which hours of each day of the week you can spend doing your tasks.

For example, imagine that on Monday you arrive home from school at 3pm, and you have tennis lessons at 6pm, so, on that day, from 3pm to 6pm you have 3 hours to do the things that you want or that you have to.

3.-Divide that time

The next thing to do is to think about how much time do you want or need to spend doing the different categories of to-dos each day. Do you have to dedicate 2 hours to the academic-related ones, or 3?? And how much time do you want to spend on your personal to-dos??

Then, divide the time that you have for doing your tasks into the groups of hours or minutes that you decided that you should spend doing each category of to-dos.

For example, if you have 3 hours on Monday for doing everything and you know that you will be doing the academic to-dos for at least 2 hours, divide those 3 hours into two groups, one group of 2 hours for your academic to-dos and the another one of 1 hour for your personal to-dos.

4.-Make a schedule

This step is pretty simple, just grab a pen and a paper (or open notes or calendar app) and create your weekly schedule based on what you did in the last two steps.

For example, if you are home from 3pm to 6pm on Mondays, and you are going to be 2 hours doing academic to-dos and 1-hour doing personal to-dos, you can write in your schedule that that day, from 3pm to 5pm, you are going to do all the academic-related things, and from 5pm to 6pm you are going to do your personal stuff.

5.- Do to-do lists

And last but not least, you have to divide a paper into the same number of sections as the one of your to-do categories. Then, write each to-do in the correct section.

For example, if you have two categories, you divide the paper into two sections.

This is a step that we will repeat daily, weekly or/and monthly (it depends on what type/s of to-do lists you use), whereas we won’t do the other ones again unless the time that you have for doing all your things changes too.

I hope that I explained all the steps well, it really took me a lot of time to do this and idk yet if I expressed everything in an understandable way :cc

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!!

Don't believe everything you think~

One of the goals that every student want to achieve is being productive, or, in other words, don't procrastinate and do a big amount of work every day; in fact, that is what we all should do if we want to be good students. The problem here is when productivity turns into something toxic, like when you feel guilty when you are doing anything except working on your tasks, or when you work and work whole day without any break.

We have to avoid toxic productivity and try to use healthy productivity instead.

But, what is healthy productivity?

Basically, healthy productivity is a more balanced way of spending your time. That means that you give energy to each area of your life during the day, including work, hobbies, etc. You don't only work and do a lot of tasks, but you also rest and relax.

So, here, I'm going to tell you some tips that have helped me to be more productive in a healthy way.

A little disclaimer: these are tips that work for me, but that doesn't mean that they will work for you too. Everyone is different, so our study and organizations methods are, and that's ok <333 Just try the ones that you think will be helpful for you too.

If you want to be productive in a healthy way, you have to work smarter, not harder. But, how do you do that??

Set little goals every morning

Setting goals and trying to achieve them before we go to sleep helps us to have something to focus on during the day.

When you wake up, write from one to three simple things that you want to accomplish that day, and just work for it.

Have a schedule

Schedules are something very useful if you want to organize your time. They help us to divide our days into groups of hours or minutes that we can spend doing tasks or breaks.

Organization is key if you want to be productive, and that's why I recommend making a schedule that helps you spend your time wisely.

Do a to-do list for every day, week or month

We all have things to do and, the best way to remember them, is to write a to-do list. It doesn't need to be an extra-large to-do list full of difficult tasks, just write what you feel like doing or what you know that you will be able to finish by the end of the day, week, or month, and then do the tasks that you wrote.

It doesn't mind if you didn't complete all the tasks on the to-do list by the due date, in fact, the objective of the to-do list is to remember and organize, not to finish all the things you wrote. You will always have more time to do that work, just do your best at any task and don't feel stressed.

Sleep enough time

Sleeping is something very important, it gives us the energy that we need for the day.

When we are rested, we are more active and we feel more motivated to do things. Idk about you, but when I sleep less than 8 hours, I’m the most unproductive person in the world because I don’t have enough energy to do my tasks; that’s why I think that sleeping is something fundamental in a productive person's life.

We need energy to work, so we need to sleep if we want to work.

Avoid procrastination

Procrastination is your biggest enemy if you want to be productive.

We have to avoid leaving our tasks for the last moment because, when we do, we are being unproductive and we always end up feeling overwhelmed, stressed and guilty, and that’s not what we want.

Not procrastinating is difficult tho; in fact, we, as humans, tend to avoid doing tasks that we don’t feel like doing. On YouTube, you can find a lot of helpful videos about how to stop procrastinating. Here I'm going to leave you some links to videos that I liked:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x7MkLDGnu8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km4pOGd_lHw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXyY_foOel0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr9NbNify00

Remember that procrastination is not the same as taking a break. You procrastinate because you feel lazy and you don’t want to work, but you take a break because you think that you need to relax and take care of your mental health.

I hope that these tips help you ✿

Remember that productivity isn’t the same as not having any break and working a lot, it’s just about organizing our time the best way possible, so we can both work and relax.

Slow progress is still progress~

~02.09.2021~

Today I have woken up early and I spent most of my time writing posts and some posts ideas.

I have also cleaned my last year binder and I found these gorgeous notes about the renaissance that I took in my history class!!

I love them omg, they just look so elegant~

~01.09.2021~

Guess who starts school in one week :’)

After two months of barely doing anything productive, today I decided to put my life together and to prepare myself for the upcoming academic year.

I have gotten up early, made a to-do list, checked my email, organised my school bag and pencil case, and I did my bujo set up for September!!!

I still have a lot of things to do tho, but I guess that I will finish my tasks throughout the week or something like that ✿~

(Or when it has already started lol)

Back to school is here!! (At least for me lmao) And lately, I’ve been doing some things to start the academic year strong. So, I’m going to give you some tips that will help you at the beginning of the school year to start the best way possible.

A little disclaimer: these are things that have been helpful to me throughout the years, but that doesn’t mean that they will be helpful for you too, and that’s completely ok <333 Everyone is different, so our study and organisations systems are. Just do what you think will be useful for you. Also, remember that you can do these things at any time of the year, it’s never too late to get your life together!!!

Set goals

This is very important if you want to have something to focus on during the whole year.

Just think about the things that you need to improve and to start doing, they can be personal or academic, then, make goals based on those things, and an action plan that will help you to achieve them.

For doing the action plan, write simple but useful habits that you can include in your daily/study routine, and that will help you to achieve your goals in the long term.

Remember that your goals and the action plan have to be realistic.

Fix your sleep schedule

Having a healthy sleep schedule is something very, very important for students of all ages. For productive study sessions, you need to be rested and full of energy, and that won’t happen if you barely sleep.

Most of us need to sleep from 8 to 9 hours per day. The best way to manage to sleep the hours that you need to not be a zombie on the next day is to calculate at which time you will have to fall asleep approximately. For example, I have to wake up at 7am if I don’t want to arrive late at school, so I have to fall asleep at 11pm more or less. To get used to that sleep schedule, I will have to try to fall asleep at an hour near 11pm every day until I manage to fall asleep at that hour, do you see my point?? This sounds kinda easy, but it actually isn’t, it will take you some time, that’s why I recommend you to start doing it 2 or 3 weeks before school starts (but this is up to you and how easy you find it to change your sleep schedule).

Eliminate distractions

When I’m talking about distractions, I refer to digital and physical distractions.

-To eliminate digital distractions:

Delete those apps on your phone that helps you to be unproductive, such as social media or some games.

If you don’t want to delete them, you can set time limits for your phone. You can do it on the settings app if you have an iPhone.

You can also keep your phone and all the digital stuff that you won’t need for your study sessions in a place far away from where you are studying, like in a drawer in your living room or in a box in the kitchen.

You can also install a website blocker program on your computer.

-To eliminate physical distractions:

Declutter your workspace and leave only the things that you will need to study. I know that having an aesthetic and decorated study table is very cool, but, most of the time, it doesn’t help to stay focused.

Set your organization system

Staying organized is the most important thing at school and college. If we don’t organize our little tasks, big projects and important exams, we won’t be able to succeed throughout the year. Everyone needs to have an organisational system that works for them.

Your organization system doesn’t need to be the same as the ones of other people, we all organize ourselves in different ways, and that’s ok. What you have to do is to think about what kind of things do your organization system needs to have and to write it on paper. Will you need a to-do list for the month, for the week or both?? Will you need a monthly calendar, or maybe yearly calendars are better for you?? What days will you be able to study?? At what time should you start studying every day?? Just think about this type of thing.

What I recommend is to have a bullet journal, because you can adapt it to your necessities. It doesn’t need to be something fancy, but something that helps you. If decorating all your spreads with stickers and markers helps you to stay motivated and organized, go ahead. If it doesn’t, don’t worry and just do simpler spreads with fewer materials.

You can also search organization systems videos on YouTube, they provide a lot of ideas. Basically, they are very helpful.

Remember that your organization system has to be the one that adapts to you, not you to the organization system. This means that you are free to change it whenever you want if you see that it doesn’t work.

Review what you studied last year

During holidays, we all forget what we have learned in school (except if you have been studying every day, but I know that, unless your teachers send you homework, you won’t do it lol). For that reason, it’s important to review everything before school starts so you don’t forget all those things that you studied.

You don’t need to put a lot of work into it, just go through your notes and, maybe, do some outlines or rewrite your notes if that helps you to remember the information.

I hope that these tips are as useful for you as they are for me ✿

Remember to do your best at everything, and don’t worry about the results, just about doing your work correctly and honestly.

Life is tough, but so are you~

~30.08.2021~

Today has been a lazy day. I’ve been watching Gilmore Girls most of the time (and I’m proud to say that I have finished the 1st season, yay!!). I have also prepared myself for the next month by doing a really short journaling spread about my goals for September.

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