Hello, lovelies! I’ve gotten a couple of asks about studying so I decided to condense them into one post for you guys! I’m trying to hit a bunch of different topics so if you need an even more specific post you can send an ask! Without any further ado, have some tips! My studyblr is @spacey-scholar​

Prep

First, you always need a good base for your day! Especially if you’re studying a lot.

Make a good full breakfast! Ex. Eggs and Toast, Smoothie and fruit, Pancakes and a cup of juice. 

How’s your hygiene? Do you need to shower, brush your teeth, wash your face, condition your hair? Do it! You’ll be distracted if you feel messy!

Get dressed like it’s a normal day. Staying in PJ’s is okay! But being ready for the day seriously helps focus!

Likewise, your space should be clean. A clean space is a clean mind! Remove dishes, trash, scrap paper, and extra items. Wide down your desk, organize your pens and books. Your space should feel like your space!

Now make a list of what you need to get done! What needs to be done Now, what needs to be done Soon, and what needs to be done Later? 

Order your list how you want your day to go, and don’t put super-tough subjects back to back, or subjects that are similar exercises i.e. reading thirty pages of two different books back to back is no fun.

The Studying

It’s important to buckle down with No Distractions! If you find yourself distracted put your phone away! If you need your phone, put it on Do Not Disturb until you’re done. I also do this at night for better sleep. 

Pick the best technique for you, Pomodoro, reward-based, group studying, etc.

Play music but only if it will not distract you! If you sing along or daydream it’s the wrong music! Classical, Lo-fi, and White noise are all good! My Spotify Here has some good ones.

Use a nice journal (I don’t mean expensive!) and pens/pencils you enjoy using. I like to have a specific journal and color dedicated to each subject. 

Take notes on recorded lectures and classes, if you’re doing online classes right now try to screen record or record the audio! That way if you space out you can play it later and take notes, and you can absorb the lesson better instead of being distracted.

Don’t worry about your notes, stationary, pictures, being beautiful and your grades being perfect. Life doesn’t always look the way it does on Instagram. And the people who spend hours trying to get a good photo of their coffee are not studying! 

Use flashcards! Quizlet is good if you need premade ones! If you can save up and buy them, Barrons AP Flash Cards are the best in my opinion. Very clean, not too long, very durable, and cover all subjects.

Feeling Distracted 

If you catch yourself drifting off and getting into your head, get up and take a quick walk, stretch, or energizer. 

It’s okay if this happens, don’t guilt yourself! practice affirmation. The best and smartest still get distracted. 

If you are drifting, why? Are you hungry? Tired? Thirsty? Bored? Get a snack and some water, take a break and rest, find a way to make your studying more enjoyable. 

Remember that Motivation and Discipline are different things. Sometimes we just won’t be motivated, we won’t want to do it and it will be rather frustrating. But the cure to this is not shaming its discipline. Remind yourself “This may be hard, and I may not want to do this, but I want to reach my goals and If this is what It takes I will make it happen. 

Always do just one more page of you’re tired. One at a time and oh you did it! Maybe just one more? One more? Eh, one more just to finish the train of thought, Oh just- I’m done? Nice!

If you really can’t focus just move on and come back to this subject, you can always ask for help.

Supplementary Things

There are so many apps you can use to study, for free! My favorites are Tide, Quizlet, Focus Keeper, Forest, Flora, Egenda, SpanishDict, Photomath, and Kahn Academy. 

You can also join a study group! You may know one, but if you don’t, there are a lot of online ones! I’m in a study Discord and have been for a while! it helps a lot and motivates me to finish my work!

You can make a studyblr, but don’t do it just for the aesthetics! It’s about studying, and sometimes that gets messy! Sometimes we fail a test, we spill our tea on our notes, we cry because we don’t understand the formula. That’s the part you don’t see!

Having cute stationery can really help, as well as nice organizers and decorations for your space! I don’t have much money so I get a lot of stuff on Amazon or FB Marketplace.

Health

Remember that no matter what you are good enough. It’s okay if you fail, it’s okay if you struggle.

It’s also okay if your path doesn’t go the way you expected! Maybe you go to a different school than expected! Or choose a trade instead! Maybe you take a gap year! Maybe your passion changes! Maybe it changes six times!

Your health is always more important than your school. If you are in pain, mentally or physically, if you are anxious, exhausted, burnt out, talk to your teachers about it! You matter more than a grade.

Your best is good enough! And your best doesn’t look the same as someone else’s best! Don’t compare!

(previous editions) bold = favourite

class, race, & labour

i, racist

why europe’s muslims are braced for france’s stint running the eu presidency

please stop putting hell money next to chinese dishes

the aboriginal tent embassy began with an umbrella and became a symbol of sovereignty (australia)

‘won’t take it any more’: south korea’s starbucks baristas rebel

black lives matter protests spark reminder of ‘deeply rooted’ racial injustice towards west papuans (indonesia)

gender & sexuality

how to write about trans people

modern action and superhero films fetishise the body, even as they desexualise it

victory in court for indigenous women raped during guatemala’s civil war

the redemption of the bad mother

poland has ‘blood on its hands’ after death of woman refused an abortion

politics, climate change, & covid

‘everyone asks about novak’ but mehdi has languished for nine years in australian immigration detention

behind the label: how the us stitched up the honduras garment industry

‘not a single afghan without trauma’: how endless cycles of conflict are shattering afghans

‘milk tea alliance’ brews democracy online among young activists across asia

the uyghur chronicles: one by one, my friends were sent to the camps (china)

the battle for the future of the west (ukraine/us)

history, culture, & media

sunset boulevard at 70: we’re all norma desmond now

secrets of south korea’s house of horrors

‘the misfits,’ marilyn monroe’s final film, is bleak perfection

the marvel juggernaut: with great power comes zero responsibility

Study Notes

The Art of Highlighting @studygene​

How to Avoid Vomiting a Rainbow a.k.a. Colour Coding Your Notes @fuckstudy​

Guide to Study Guides @etudiantt​

How I make study guides @coffeesforstudiers​

Make Accessible PowerPoints @gojikas​

Guide to: Mind Maps @study-well​

How to Mind Map @study-nsp​

10 Mistakes when Studying @howtostudyquick​

How I Take Notes @acollegegirlsays​

Note Taking System @theorganisedstudent​

How to Annotate @tbhstudying​

How I Make Notecards! @cw0630​

How I Format and Use Flashcards @illolita​

Tips for Flashcards @tbhstudying​

Studying

Effective Studying @studybudyblr​

Apiarianbelljar’s Guide to Studying in Bed @apiarianbelljar​

How to Stay Focused @elkstudies​

101 Study Tips @study-early​

Study Tips for Lazy People @riseandstudy​

Studying For the Lazy @areistotle​

A Stash of Tiny Study Tips @justagirltryingtostudy​

How to Study Like a Harvard Student @yhbgk​

How to Earn More A’s: Tips From an Honours Student @abs-studies​

How to Focus @studyocracy​

Study Tips From: an MIT Student with a 5.0 @academicheaux​

Study and Exam Tips @workhardlikegranger​

Textbook Studying

How to Take Notes: from a Textbook @staticsandstationery

Studying from textbooks with PsychedAboutStudying Part 1 @psychedaboutstudying

Studying from textbooks with PsychedAboutStudying Part 2 @psychedaboutstudying​

Studying from textbooks with PsychedAboutStudying Part 3 @psychedaboutstudying​

Studying from textbooks with PsychedAboutStudying Part 4 @psychedaboutstudying​

A Visual Learner’s Guide to Textbook Note Taking @stxdybug​

At School

How to do Well in a Class Taught by a Crappy Teacher @coffeeandstationery​

Annotating Effectively @hideandstudy​

How to Take Effective Notes in Class @emmastudies​

Staying Awake/Focused in Class @mathbrain​

Class Presentations and Speaking in Public @nerdytravelingstudent​

Public Speaking Tips @inkdippedquills​

Study Tips for the New Semester @studyingandlattes​

Homework and Essays

Clichés to Avoid for Essays @appblrgirl

How to: Write a Killer English Essay @izzystudies

The Discursive/ Argumentative Essay @areistotle 

The Narrative Essay + The Descriptive Essay @areistotle

How to Write a Strong Essay @collegemania​

How to Write the Perfect College Essay @sara-laughed​

How to Tackle Big Projects @study-studymore-studyhard​

Research Tips @studyingiscool​

Who Needs Wikipedia @procrastinatioff​

Exams

How to: Remember Everything for a Test @getstudyblr​

Emergency Study Plan: My Test is Tomorrow and I Haven’t Started Studying @getstudyblr​

How to Mentally Prep Yourself for a Test @eruditicn​

How to Study for a Test @tbhstudying​

How to Improve Bad Grades @tbhstudying​

The Ultimate Guide to Final Exams @sara-laughed​

How to Make a Study Plan for Finals @sara-laughed​

How to Stay Calm and Reduce Stress During Finals @sara-laughed​

Organisation and Motivation

Minimalist School Organisation @deinterlacing​

How to Catch Up on Missed Work @munirastudies​

How to Make the Best Use of Your Time @tbhstudying​

Productivity Resource List @lifting-books​

16 Pieces of Real Advice for 2016 @azumeryl​

How to Start Working When You Really Don’t Feel Like It? @strive-for-da-best​

Beating Procrastination @to-work-or-not-to-work​

Tips for Getting Your Motivation Back @liveandstudy​

How to Make a Great, Simple Google Docs Agenda @saturdaystudying​

Concentration Masterpost @study-star​

Focus & Motivation @coffeeandrevision​

3 Ways to Set Study Goals + Goal Setting Tips @abs-studies​

Breaks/ Holidays

How to Make the Most Out of the Christmas Holidays @studysophical​

Planning for Breaks/ Holidays @studybuzz​

Saturday Study Tips @alexandraleighc​

Study Breaks @makingmyselfstudy​

Avoiding Burnout @studybuzz​

Online

Online Courses: A Guide @gracelearns​

9 Free Online Courses You Should Take @johnnylist​

My Favourite Productive Chrome Extensions @living-the-ib-life​

Subject Specific

Math Studying Technique @lunastudy

How to Study a Mathematics Textbook @collegegirlbyday

Tips for Studying Chemistry @chemistrynerd2020

Biology Help @abs-studies

Studying Biology @joolshallie

Guide to Reading Literature @eggnotes

Annotating (English) @areistotle

Health

Dealing with Failure @fuckstudy

Study Guide- for Health @jwstudying

Stop Comparing Yourself to Others @gryhffindors

What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do @nyctophiliaccarly

What to Do on a Bad Day @maryplethora

How to Stay Productive During Sick Days @studysophical

Overstudies Tips #1 For Getting Better Rest @overstudies

How to Take Constructive Criticism @howtomusicmajor

so i'm haphazardly putting together a spreadsheet of the banned tags. i won't have the time to maintain this long term, but for now, maybe this can serve as a useful tool to show how to warn without getting blocked on the ios mobile apple devices. additionally, this is to show how flawed tumblr's blocking system is. they're only blocking very specific tags, not tags that contain certain words in them

beyond this, if you simply list your content warnings in the body of your post, text filtering will allow for people to filter out posts as well. the ban doesn't seem to extend to post content.

My light academia Notion setup

contains 34 textbooks including etymology, language acquisition, morphology, phonetics/phonology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, & translation studies

dropbox containing language textbooks

contains 86 language textbooks including ASL, Arabic, (Mandarin) Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew (Modern & Ancient), Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh

dropbox containing books about language learning

includes fluent forever by gabriel wyner, how to learn any language by barry farber, polyglot by kató lomb

*click for better quality*

Why does society call Black people stupid and uneducated when they use Blackcent (is that how you spell that?)

But I intentionally mispronounce words because it's fun to say it weird, but no one calls me stupid.

Like.

Why is it okay if I pronounce it incorrectly when I make the conscious decision to do it, but a Black person says it weird because if their accent, and you'll call them stupid?

[part II: the depression edition]

since my last advice post is somehow still getting traction despite having been posted almost three years ago, i thought it might be a decent idea to expand it into a series! when i wrote that post i was dealing with the aftermath of traumatic events, experiencing a developing post traumatic stress disorder for the first time. what i needed most out of recovery was a way to build moments of solace and joy into my daily life, so that’s what that post focused on.

three years down the line, my recovery goals have changed quite a bit. my focus right now is on learning strategies to cope with major depressive episodes and figuring out how to pick up the pieces after days or weeks of barely being able to get out of bed. here’s what i’ve got down so far!

does waking up (and staying awake) in the morning feel like an insurmountable hurdle right now? same. it’s rough.

make your alarm impossible to ignore. turn the volume all the way up and set it to a song you can’t physically resist screaming along to (or a song you hate so much you would do literally anything to turn it off. either works). bonus points if you know you’ll have to sprint to turn it off before it wakes up others in your household.

you will feel worse if you turn the alarm off and crawl back into bed. trust me. you will. if you hit snooze, you’ll feel groggy and annoyed in ten minutes. if you turn the alarm off entirely, you’ll wake up in five hours and still feel like shit anyways.

make it as hard as possible for yourself to get back into bed. keep your alarm across the room from your bed, behind an obstacle course. the more things you’ve had to do before you can turn the alarm off, the easier it will be to just get up instead of going back to sleep.

if you can, use an app like this that sets your alarm to only turn off when you scan a certain barcode. set the barcode to something you keep on the complete opposite side of your house.

better yet, set the barcode to your tube of toothpaste. by the time you’re able to turn your alarm off, you’ll already be in the bathroom holding the toothpaste. while you’re still on half-asleep autopilot, it’s much easier to say “fuck it” and brush your teeth before you can think twice.

having a hard time with personal hygiene, but your own body odor is making you feel a thousand times more depressed? yeah, i’ve been there.

get yourself some really strong deodorizing soap. drag yourself into the shower, spend ten seconds lathering the parts of your body that smell the worst (armpits, groin, anywhere you sweat a lot). rinse and repeat twice. the smell will be completely gone with minimal effort on your part.

don’t have the energy to shampoo, but greasy hair also making you feel gross? just use the bar soap on your hair too. yes it will dry your hair out, but it’s effective and you can always condition later if you feel better.

don’t have the energy to get into the shower or turn it on? if your pits are sweaty, just take the bar of soap and rub it in the sweat until it lathers. wipe off the soap residue. it will smell a thousand times better. (if your pits are not sweaty enough for this, a splash of water works great too).

your bedroom is such a mess that you can’t even imagine how you could start cleaning it? i know the feeling.

pick a corner. designate this your “clean corner.” literally shove the clutter away from this corner until you have a space big enough to sit down in. cleaning is less overwhelming when you have somewhere to retreat to.

personally, the bulk of my mess is usually dirty laundry that i have been putting off washing. forget about washing it right now. if you have a separate closet, pick up every piece of laundry on the floor and throw it into that closet to be dealt with later. close the door.

if you don’t have a separate closet, stuffing it into trash bags is another way to collect your dirty laundry and make it less visually overwhelming. trash bags can be stacked better than individual items of clothing, leaving you with more empty floor space.

the next easiest thing to get rid of is trash. if there’s so much trash around that picking up all of it at once is daunting, start with food waste. it is easy to identify and probably making your room smell.

out of sight, out of mind. the more you can shove the clutter into boxes, bags, closets, etc. to deal with later, the better. you can sort through it, pile by pile, when you have the time.

you don’t have to be perfect all of the time. or any of the time, even!

depression making it impossible for you to do the dishes? if you’re able to stock up on paper plates, cups, and disposable utensils, just use those instead. i promise, you are not singlehandedly destroying the environment by doing so.

out of clean clothing, but can’t muster up the energy to do laundry? spray your clothes with febreeze. wait a minute and then shake them out as hard as you can to air them out. congrats, you now have a single outfit that smells more like car air fresheners than body odor. (please do not do this with underwear. if you need to reuse underwear, turn it inside out).

cheat on your assignments. for fuck’s sake, if it won’t get you in trouble, just do it. academia is a sham, you have more important things to worry about, and you can always learn the information later when you’re not working against a deadline.

know that sometimes it is all you can do to stay alive. every breath you take is an accomplishment. on the days when you can’t even stand up, rolling over to the cooler side of the pillow is an accomplishment.

you are quite literally winning at life, by sheer virtue of not being dead right now. congratulations!