#study well

1. Be kind to yourself.

Studying is hard enough, even for the gifted kids, straight-A students, 4.0 since birth, effortless workaholics.

If you feel exhausted, take a break. A timed one is best, but take a break. Sleep, walk around, eat, do something fun, stare at the wall, cry, talk to people, scroll online, rant to yourself about life, do anything except be productive. Rest if you need it. You won’t get things done if you’re always 2 seconds from crying.

Sleep, for the love of god sleep. There’s no competition of “who can function the best on the least sleep”. Get a minimum of 8 hours, please, for your own sanity. At minimum, I do 6 if I have a lot of studying to do in one night, but these are exceptions. You can’t study if you’re sleepy.

2. Have some level of organization

If this means a full bullet journal, a dedicated notion space, daily todo lists, or even random post-it notes and lists on your hand, anything is better than nothing. When you’re overwhelmed and forgetting things, a visual reminder can save a grade.

On the other end, don’t spend hours organizing. If it’s during a break that’s okay, but when it cuts into actual studying, you might be better off with a sticky note stuck to your face then a beautiful header and color-coded database (as painful as it sounds 🥲)

3. Do stuff while you study

Eat snacks, drink stuff, play with figit spinners, play lo-fi or music in other languages. If it’s distracting, then don’t, but consider it.

4. Time yourself

Use pomodoro (cliché, but it works, i promise). If you can’t afford forest, try your phone’s native timer or other free pomodoro timers. For the notioners, Bloc’s has a free widget.

MinimaList is a cute, simple todo list app with a pomodoro feature

5. For the hyperfixators

Time youself like I mentioned above, but do your thing during breaks if you can’t help youself. When I get obsessed with a new fic or show, I take my 10 minute breaks to read or watch. It’s both motivating and comforting.

It’s hard pulling yourself away, but don’t forget about what you need to do. Do your best :) If worst comes to worst, have 30 minute breaks in between the 30 minute study sessions. 30 minutes of productivity every hour is better than 30 minutes of staring at your book and 10 minutes of staring at the wall.

Ideally, don’t give in and read/watch/etc. when you have studying to do, but this is better than nothing.

6. Try different study spots

I didn’t realize how effective this is until recently. Move around every week or every day and get a new spot.

You have options: in just my room, I have my desk, my bed, the ground, and the random chair in the corner. You might also have: random benches outside, the library, your kitchen table, the couch, the grass under a tree, hallways, or your dining hall. This also helps with back/neck pain! Maybe it won’t work for you, but maybe it will.

Just to repeat, be kind to yourself. If your friend was crying, exhausted, burntout, depressed, you wouldn’t tell them to suck it up and study. Don’t do that to yourself either.

Bonus: try my recent musical obsession: Seori, a korean R&B artist I listen to when I study. It helps that I usually can’t understand the lyrics, so it’s like lo-fi. Take care, study well 💜

If you have more, add them in a comment and I’ll reblog.