Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Champagne Studying?

Man I love september its the footy finals for both codes, as well as the road world championships. During september the term "Champagne Football" gets thrown around quite often, it's often used in reference to a team playing an attractive style of football likely to win that team the premiership. However for us uni students I would like to coin the term "Champagne Studying"

I hate this time of year personally though, simply because assignments become due, exam revision kicks into gear, my stress levels sky-rocket, my time on a bike drops rapidly and my nutrition turns to things that it just shouldn't. As I write this blog I am roughly three and a half weeks away from returning home to Brisbane for the summer. Words cannot express how utterly pumped I am for this. New house to return to, a potential job and a great summer of training all lie ahead of me.

All this excitement towards the future and what may lie ahead is doing quite a good job of helping me see past the task at hand, which is arguably a much more important, great and more difficult task then my goings on over the summer. The task at hand simply put is assessment, lots of it. In the next three and a half weeks across my four subjects I'll write two 2000 word assignments and sit three exams. All of which bar one exam will more the likely have a huge bearing on my results for this semester. So as these weeks draw to a close I thought it might be a good idea to run through in my view the trait and attributes as well as tricks that come in hand when returning to my original topic of "Champagne Studying" the more astute readers of mine will have now roughly figured out that I am referring to study habits likely to net the maximum results possible when it comes to the September crunch time.

GET OFF THE SOCIAL MEDIA
This is probably the most important piece of advice I can offer, I know many who get friends to change passwords, delete accounts and so forth. The simple fact of the matter is these social networking and media tools are greatly distracting, highly addictive and largely time consuming. GET OFF THEM! It's two, three weeks with out it tops, you won't die. In all probability you will find the change refreshing like I am.

CLEAN YOUR SHIT UP!
One great piece of advice I once heard from a friend is a cluttered desk indicates a cluttered mind. This I think is very true if your study space is cluttered, I think so will your approach to study be cluttered and messy. Also no-one enjoys sitting at a flithy desk to work at for long periods of time. So quite simply CLEAN IT! You will be amazed at the difference this can make.

WORK IT OUT
Have you ever been so stressed you feel you could just run from it all? Well if your at that point, or feel yourself getting close to that point then chances are that you need to GO FOR A RUN! I'm not exactly sure how this works, however I've always found it easier to study after a hard workout be it a run or ride or whatever. You feel better about yourself, have released some negative energy that is associated with stress and will also have cleared your mind. Perfect state to be in for study.

TAKE A BREAK
This is a no-brainer but often neglected by even the most veteran students. You should ideally be taking a quick 5-10 minute break from study every hour to 90 minutes, simply because no-one can concentrate for ever breaks help us freshen up, and allow us a chance to refocus. The other big benefit of taking a break is it will allow you to not get bored and do something else other then study.

MAKE IT COUNT
You can study when your in the mood or study between set hours either approach I've found and seen works just as well. The difference between the two is minimal. Whenever you sit down to study however you need to say yourself "I am going to rock this for the next however long and produce my best work". It's all about the quality of your work not the quantity of it.

So there are some simple tips to "Champagne Studying" little things that anyone can easily implement and should already know. I wish all uni students good-luck over the next few weeks and months as assessment slowly takes over our lives.

Stay Safe, Be Awesome
Dangerous Dave

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