If you’re anything like me, you’re at the point in the semester where dropping out and moving into your parents basement actually sounds reasonable.
You’ve got 10 papers, six exams, a hundred little assignments, and two group projects. All due next week. Oh. And you cannot find a way to make yourself care about a single thing.
It all has to get done, but how will you do it?
Here is a list of last minute study strategies for those of us who tell ourselves we “work better under pressure” or don’t believe in this planning ahead nonsense:
A visual of the mountain of work left to do might be terrifying, but a list will help you develop your plan of action. The pressure will be off your mind to remember every little thing, and nothing is better than crossing something off of a list.
I’ll start by listing everything that needs to be done by the end of the semester. But this long, amorphous list makes me want to crawl into my bed and hope my comforter and favorite T.V. shows will protect me from my responsibilities.
I look at the list and pick a few manageable tasks and set a time limit. This part takes some honesty! It is easy underestimate how long it will take to complete a task, so always allot slightly more time than you think you’ll need.
- Don’t forget self-care!
Include non-school related stuff on the list. It is easy to forget we still have to be functioning people this time of year. Even though the work is piling up, we need to juggle basic tasks like eating, showering, and putting pants on- so don’t leave them off of your to do list!
Include items like “eat breakfast,” “get out of bed,” or “cry about the inevitable snowball effect that will be set off if your paper describing the origins of the Islamic State is not turned in on time.”
It feels good to cross these items off, and you will have more time to think about school work if you remember ahead of time that you should be wearing pants when you walk to the Caf for dinner.
- Work on your time management!
Time management is not my strong suit. I have no self-discipline and the endlessness of “studying” gives me anxiety. I will look at the list, tell myself, “oh that seems manageable, there is totally time for just one Jane the Virgin episode and a quick nap before I get started.” Then it is 1:00 am and I have done nothing all day.
There are plenty of time management strategies, my favorite is an app called Pomodoro. Once I’ve written my big list, I break it down into tasks that will take fewer than five minutes, between five and 15 minutes, and those that will take longer than 15 minutes. Any task that will take more than 15 minutes is plugged into Pomodoro.
When you start the timer on your task, it allocates 25 minutes of work followed by a five minute break. After four cycles, or two hours, you take a 15 minute break. Even with my intense fear of commitment, I am able to stick with a task for 25 minutes.
- No, seriously, take care of yourself.
This one needs to be reiterated! Get sleep, eat well, drink more water than coffee or RedBull. Stress can work in our favor, allowing us to accomplish things we thought we never could, but it becomes counterproductive, even crippling, if our bodies are under pressure for too long.
- Remember: perfection is the ideal, but the enemy of done.
It is often better to turn in something mediocre than it is to get a late penalty on the perfect paper. I’m not saying you shouldn’t work hard to do the best you can, but you can’t do any better than the best you can. Be nice to yourself; you’ve probably got a lot going on and it is unrealistic to expect perfection across the board (or at all!).
If all else fails, think about the other times you’ve made it through finals when you thought you couldn’t. I can (almost) guarantee you’ll survive the next two weeks if you take it one step at a time.