Study Like No One is Watching

12.12.18 | 10:08am

02.05.17 — this week is green! featuring the pens i’ll be using throughout this week 🍃 i’m so tired after staying up last night studying for biology ;;-;

Bored of being told to listen to classical music? Here is a list of great study music from your favorite video games, movies and more. 

aesthetics and smooth

lofi hip hop radio 

anime vibes

dozing off *

soft piano

nostalgic *

synthwave

video games

compilation

animal crossing *

final fantasy 

fez

pokemon

zelda

nintendo 

assassins creed 

mario bros

ambient sounds

hufflepuff common room *

slytherin common room

ravenclaw common room

gryffindor common room

hagrids hut

diagon alley

the hall of faces (game of thrones)

the green dragon inn (lotr)

spaceship bedroom

medival towns

fireplace

from the screen

the hobbit

harry potter

disney

studio ghibli 

the grand budapest hotel *

amelie

pirates of the caribbean

narnia

how to train your dragon

clockwork orange

moonrise kingdom

twin peaks

acoustics / bands (with lyrics)

the paper kites

gregory alan isakov

soley

crywolf

mogwai

good vibes to fill your room when you need to shut out the world and finish that essay or let out stress or celebrate irony

it’s a warm, slow day; sunlight pours through the window and time feels honeyed as you curl up with a book and a cup of tea and no responsibilities

on a road trip that leads to the sea; falling in love with nature and life and music and your best friend; feeling at peace

heartbreak, missed connections, star crossed lovers and falling out of love; whatever the opposite of a love song is

the hazy feeling of a suburbian love affair, somewhere between realitiy and a sonic dreamscape

old crush whose name and laughter still linger in your mind and it’s a vague kind of longing but oh, it’s definitely there

when you need to either astral project or escape into a seperate plane of existance, just for a little while

Colour coding is a simple method of helping you learn and memorise material. When used effectively, it not only helps with your understanding but looks pretty! Setting up a colour code that works for all your subjects and can suit highlighters is often tricky, but these are my tips for creating and utilising your own personalised system! 

Don’t over complicate! You don’t need to have 20 different colours but around 7 or 8 so it’s still easy to remember. Identifying what areas you want to highlight (for general and subject specific) is a great way to start. This can include terms, formulas, dates, etc!

Gather your supplies. Obviously you’ll need an assorted pack of coloured pens to start your system. I use Staedtler Stick 432 Ice Ballpoint Pens and Stabilo Swing Cool Highlighters since the colours are very similar and therefore work for both writing and highlighting. You could also use coloured post-it notes for annotating!

Use examples to sort your own code! Seeing what other people are doing and applying your own twist is good way to get started. My colour code was created for general use but mainly for business and legal studies. My system is as follows:

Black - for general notes.

Yellow (highlighter only) - for important information that outlines the point.

Light blue (pen and highlighter) - for terms and their definitions/synonyms.

Red (pen only) - for sentence points and key ideas in my study notes (usually not class notes). 

Dark blue (pen and highlighter) - for businesses, agencies, legislation, etc. 

Light green (pen and highlighter) - for quotes, case studies.

Dark green (pen only) - for people’s names or important dates.

Purple (pen and highlighter) - for books titles, publications, reports. 

Pink (pen and highlighter) - for statistics. 

Orange - for examples.

Avoid over-doing-it. Write mostly in black. It is easiest to keep your general notes in a dull colour so the important parts stand out. Try not to make your page a rainbow! You only want certain parts to stand out so limit what you’re writing or highlighting. Also, changing pens every minute is a waste of time, so keeping everything brief and minimal is the best way!

Finally, remember your code! Write down somewhere the meaning behind each colour. This could be on your phone, in a planner or at the beginning of each notebook - whatever works for you! After a while you’ll just know what the colours means and that will make finding material and information much easier.

How to Schedule Your Study Time

I’ve been asked multiple times to make a post about how to schedule your study time, so here it is! This is a little bit different of a schedule because it’s over mid-semester break (Easter break for most), but it still works.

Step 1: Write down everything you need to do.

Get out a piece of notebook paper or open a new document on your computer and unleash your brain’s to-do list. Write everything down from classes, work, events, and extracurriculars to your work outs, meals, showers, and sleep. Nothing is too small to be written on the list, so if you need to remember to shave your legs, write that down!!

Step 2: Assign each task an estimated amount of time it’ll take to complete.

This part is really crucial for me because it takes my organization a step further to help me achieve my studying and planning goals. It also gives me a reality check – sometimes I’m so ambitious I try to bite off more than I can chew. If I know from the beginning that I most likely won’t achieve everything I need to do, I won’t be as disappointed come the end of my planning and studying. It also tells me I probably need to pick it up during the week and stop procrastinating…

Step 3: Open up Excel, create a table on another computer program, or grab a piece of paper.

Next we’ll make the calendar with a readout of our obligations. I generally use Excel or a piece of paper, but I find that excel works best because I can edit future events easier if I didn’t quite complete a task I planned for.

Have the first column for times, then a column following for each day you want to plan. It helps to have the time column skinnier with the days’ columns wider so text can fit in easily. I leave two rows per hour (therefore one line is equal to one half hour) so I can plan for events or tasks that won’t be taking up whole hours.

Step 4: Designate a color for each of your scheduled categories.

These colors are the same as in my planner:

Purple: Anatomy & Physiology

Pink: Genetics

Blue: Beverage Management

Orange: Economics

Red: Work

Green: Extracurriculars

Black: Personal (showers, meals, sleep, relaxation, etc.)

Yellow: Travel

I enter in all of my class, work, event, and extracurricular times first – things I can’t miss. These are important to put into your schedule first because you can easily schedule studying around them. 

Step 5: Once all of your obligations are plugged into your schedule, it’s time to fill in your studying.

This is where the required times for your tasks help a great deal! It’s easy to spot an hour block here or there and plug in a 45 minute or hour task… something that may be a little hard for some when they’re just going through their day and have a block. I know whenever I get an hour block I try to nap or rest as much as possible, but this frequently puts me behind. :(

Also, it may help you to pull out your planner and see what exams, quizzes, or assignments are coming up soon. You should rank these at a higher priority and complete these sooner rather than later to ensure you complete them.

I also group lesser tasks; for example, on Thursday night at 11:00 PM I grouped two homework assignments because they really shouldn’t take that long and they’re on the computer at the same time, etc. It’s just easier for me to get them done at the same time. Just like if you need to go to a few different stores, try to go to them all in one trip. It’ll save you time, money, and gas!

Step 6: As you’re adding tasks to your schedule, make sure you’re crossing them off your list you made. You don’t want to miss anything or add something twice!

This is pretty self-explanatory but also important! Make sure you’re adding everything and not missing anything. 

Step 7: Make sure to schedule enough sleep during your night as well as time to eat/relax.

This is the most important step of them all! Without recharging your smart little brain and body, how are you going to have the fuel to move on? Also, try snacking on fruits and veggies and drinking water when you’re studying. I’m one to love candy when I’m studying and it’s hard to say “no” to my precious chocolate and skittles, but I know they’ll just bring my metabolism and energy down. Drinking a lot of water helps too because that means more bathroom breaks – which means more study breaks! ;)

Taking textbook notes is a chore. It’s tedious and boring and sometimes challenging, but hopefully these tips will help you improve your skill and shorten the time it takes you to do textbook notes!

Give yourself time: Realistically, you can’t knock out 30 pages of notes in 20 minutes. Take your time with textbook notes so they’re a good studying tool in the future. The general rule is to take how many pages you have to do and multiply it by 5: that’s how many minutes it’ll take you to do the notes.

Also, divide you notes up into manageable chunks to increase your productivity. I am personally a huge fan of using pomodoro timers, and I adjust the intervals for however long I need to.

Skim before you start taking notes: If time is an issue, don’t read your 40 page in depth before even picking up a pen, but make sure you know what you’re reading about by skimming a bit ahead of your notes. Read over section titles, and look at charts, maps, or graphs. Writing and highlighting as you read the chapter for the first time isn’t effective because you don’t know if a sentence will be important or not, so make sure you’re reading a paragraph or section in advance before writing.

Use the format they give you in the book to help take your notes: In a lot of textbooks, there will be a mini outline before the chapter itself that shows all the headings and subheadings. Those will be your guidelines! I find this super helpful because long chapters can be daunting to go into without any structure. If you don’t have one of those, use the headings and subheadings provided for you. If you haven’t already been doing this, it will help you so much.

Read actively: It’s so easy to “read” a textbook without digesting any information, but that is the last thing you want to do. Not only does it make taking notes a million times harder, but you’ll be lost in class discussions because you didn’t understand the reading. To keep from passively reading, highlight, underline, star any important information in the book itself.

Have a color coding system for highlighting or underlining and write down a key somewhere (here’s a few that you can adjust for your needs: x,x)

Use sticky notes or tabs to mark any questions or important points to come back to

Summarize important information and paraphrase: When taking the actual notes, don’t copy down full sentences word for word. Not only does writing full sentences waste a lot of time, it’s not an effective way to learn. If you can paraphrase the information, then you understand it. It’s also easier to study notes which are in your own words instead of textbook academia writing.

Be selective: You shouldn’t be writing down every fact that comes up in your textbook. If a fact ties into the bigger topic and provides evidence, then it’s probably something to keep, but you don’t need every piece of supplemental information (but do make sure you always write down the vocab). Learn your teacher’s testing style to help you decide what to write down. Could this be on the quiz/test? If the answer is yes, make sure you write it down.

Learn to abbreviate: Just like writing full sentences, writing out full words will waste time. Implement some shortenings (make sure to use ones that you’ll understand later!) into your notes. Some common ones are: b/c=because, gov=government, w/o=without, and here’s a great list of a ton of examples of abbreviations and shortenings.

Answer margin and review questions: A lot of textbooks have margin questions on every page or so that sum up what’s really important about that information. Make sure not to skip them because they’re really helpful for understanding. Write them down and answer them clearly in your notes. Most textbooks also have review questions after the chapter that check for reading comprehension, so make sure to answer those because they’ll show you if you really understood the chapter.

Don’t skip over visual sources: Maps, diagrams, illustrations, charts, and any other visuals in textbooks are so helpful. If you’re a visual learner, these things will be so essential to you and how you understand what you’re reading. Charts, tables, and diagrams sometimes also summarize information, so if you’re a visual learner it might benefit you to copy those down instead of writing it out.

Add visuals if it’ll help you: As said above, copying down charts, tables, illustrations, or diagrams can be super helpful for visual learners. They’re clear and concise, so pay attention to them.

Write your notes in a way that’s effective and makes sense to you: Mindmaps, Cornell notes, or plain outline notes are all really good forms of notetaking. Find which one works best for you to understand them and which one is most effective for your class, and use it (stuff on mindmaps and cornell notes).

shower. not a bath, a shower. use water as hot or cold as u like. u dont even need to wash. just get in under the water and let it run over you for a while. sit on the floor if you gotta.

moisturize everything. use whatever lotion u like. unscented? dollar store lotion? fancy ass 48 hour lotion that makes u smell like a field of wildflowers? use whatever you want, and use it all over. 

put on clean, comfortable clothes. 

put on ur favorite underwear. cute black lacy panties? those ridiculous boxers u bought last christmas with candy cane hearts on the butt? put em on.

drink cold water. use ice. if u want, add some mint or lemon for an extra boost.

clean something. doesn’t have to be anything big. organize one drawer of ur desk. wash five dirty dishes. do a load of laundry. scrub the bathroom sink. 

blast music. listen to something upbeat and dancey and loud, something that’s got lots of energy. sing to it, dance to it, even if you suck at both.

make food. don’t just grab a granola bar to munch. take the time and make food. even if it’s ramen. add something special to it, like a hard boiled egg or some veggies. prepare food, it tastes way better, and you’ll feel like you accomplished something. 

make something. write a short story or a poem, draw a picture, color a picture, fold origami, crochet or knit, sculpt something out of clay, anything artistic. even if you don’t think you’re good at it.

go outside. take a walk. sit in the grass. look at the clouds. smell flowers. put your hands in the dirt and feel the soil against your skin.

call someone. call a loved one, a friend, a family member, call a chat service if you have no one else to call. talk to a stranger on the street. have a conversation and listen to someone’s voice. if you can’t, text or email or whatever, just have some social interaction with another person. even if you don’t say much, listen to them.