How To Deal With Study Burnout

How to Deal with Study Burnout

As students in this day and age, it’s quite common for us to juggle rigorous academic responsibilities and overwhelming extracurricular activities. As a result, we might feel burnt out. But what exactly is burnout?

Burnout is when you feel physically and mentally exhausted as a result of constantly lacking the energy required to fulfill the demands of your studying.

Burnout can be broken down into three parts:

Exhaustion is what causes you to feel tired all the time and unable to concentrate. You could also get sick or have trouble sleeping.

Cynicism or depersonalization is when you feel disconnected from those around you, e.g. your friends and family.

Inefficacy is a decrease in productivity, efficiency, or quality of your work.

How do you know if you have burnout?

Symptoms may vary, but they include:

Being unable to absorb new information

Intellectual exhaustion

Decreasing academic performance and productivity

Feeling like you need to prove yourself

Making yourself work even more, even though you’re exhausted or being unwilling to study further

Neglecting your needs

Long term fatigue

Showing disinterest in things you normally enjoy, e.g. hobbies or friends

Denying that something’s wrong with you (may manifest in the form of aggression)

Avoiding social interaction

Feeling empty and depressed

What can I do to fix it?

Here are some short term solutions for dealing with burnout.

1. Take a power nap Power naps are life changing. They help you recharge your energy and get you ready to start working again. They also improve learning, memory, creativity, alertness, and mood. I would recommend napping for 30 minutes at most, because anything more will lead to a longer sleep session.

Optional: drink coffee before your nap - something that takes a short while to consume like a shot of espresso - so that you’ll feel alert and revitalized afterwards!

2. Take a shower A cold one will wake you up, but a warm one will calm you down. I suggest starting with warm water, then ending with cold water.

3. Exercise Whether it’s playing soccer or doing yoga, the important thing is to get moving! Exercise releases endorphins or happy hormones that help you combat stress.

4. Run a quick errand This will help take your mind off things while also getting something done! You’ll also end up walking, which is technically a form of exercise.

5. Call or visit a friend Sometimes what we’re lacking is social interaction, and hanging out with a friend definitely helps. Whether it’s providing you with a distraction or giving emotional support, your friends are always there to help you. Plus, science has shown that being with friends reduces your cortisol (stress hormone) levels.

6. Eat a snack Preferably a healthy one. Eat something with proteins, vitamins, and fibers to boost your mood. Here’s a list of mood boosting foods.

7. Surf the web This requires A TON of discipline, but it’s definitely a game changer. Surfing the web is one of the most relaxing things you could do. I personally look for a good laugh during my study breaks, so I’d watch a comedy or scroll through memes to get those happy hormones up and running.

8. Do an activity you find interesting, e.g. a hobby We all need happiness in our lives, and our hobbies are perhaps the best way to find that joy. You could sit down with a page turning adventure, or go outside and shoot hoops, or listen to a podcast, or even bullet journal, as long as you’re having a good time.

9. Listen to music Music is one of the ways we gain energy, so I always make time for it during the day. However, you should choose the right music, because not all the music you love is going to make you feel energized. For me, it’s pop punk with hard hitting beats, thundering guitars, and really upbeat, enthusiastic vocals. Some of you might be energized by mellow music with dreamy vocals that make you feel like you’re floating in the clouds. If you choose the wrong music, you might just end up feeling sluggish and drained.

10. Get some fresh air Your brain needs 20% of the oxygen in your body. Fresh air brings more oxygen to your brain so that you can think more clearly, feel less tired, and concentrate more easily.

How do I make sure I don’t get it in the future?

Avoiding study burnout in the long term has a lot to do with our study habits - as well as our daily habits. We need to make sure that our bodies and minds receive the things they need, and that we aren’t overworking them.

1. Study a little at a time Break up your notes into smaller, more easily digestible pieces and learn a little at a time. This way, you’re not overwhelming your brain, and you have time to let that new knowledge settle in.

2. Time management Having a good study schedule is crucial in preventing burnout. You don’t want to force yourself to work at your slow hours. Aside from that, you definitely shouldn’t leave things until the last minute, and sticking to a schdule will help you pace yourself. Here’s a post I wrote on How to Make an Efficient Revision Schedule and How to Beat Procrastination.

3. Get enough rest I cannot stress enough that sleep is so important for you. It improves your cognitive functioning and also enhances your mood, making it less likely that you’ll get burnt out. Make sure to take power naps, too, if you feel like you need them.

You also really shouldn’t pull all-nighters. Sleep is also involved in cementing memories in your brain, so if you study a little before you sleep, you’re bound to remember more than if you studied a chapter during an all nighter.

Having trouble sleeping? Here’s a post I made about my night routine and how to get better sleep.

4. Cycle your study environments Your body and mind are bound to get tired from being in the same location for prolonged periods of time. The best way to fix that is to study in different places: at your desk, your backyard, the dining table, a cafe, a friend’s house, the library, etc.You should find a frequency that works for you. I like to switch it up every 2-3 days; some people change locations every week.

5. Eat well As I’ve mentioned before, healthy foods with protein, vitamins, and fiber greatly improve your mood and your physical health. Proper nutrition will give your brain the power it needs to push through. Also make sure not to skip meals; honestly you’ll just end up feeling terrible afterwards.

6. Take frequent breaks Let’s face it, we’re human, we’re bound to get tired from studying for a long time. Taking breaks enables our brains to digest the information we just learned in a pace that works for it. Breaks also help us focus on something other than studying, so that when we do get back to it, we’ll be ready to digest even more information.

7. Set realistic study goals You’re gonna memorize all 500 pages of your biology textbook in one day? Good luck with that. Some of you might be compulsive studiers, but this kind of habit isn’t very good for your brain or your physical health. Studies have shown that excess studying can lead to lower productivity, fatigue, and - you guessed it - burnout. In the end, this will result in lower academic performance, perhaps even in the long run. So instead of trying to study so much in one sitting or one day, break up your material into chunks.

8. Maintain your social life Wherever you lie on the introvert-extrovert spectrum, everyone needs social interaction once in a while. It keeps you sane and healthy. Go out with your friends, have a sleepover, or maybe even a study date.

9. Start the day right What we do in the morning can significantly affect our mood for the rest of the day. Sometimes we don’t even feel like getting up in the morning, or doing anything that day. One thing you should do is create a morning routine you enjoy to jumpstart your day. Here are 8 Morning Habits for Productivity.

10. Think positive When we’re feeling burnt out, it’s hard to not think negatively about everything. In reality, that just makes our condition worse. So think positively! Start small, like congratulating yourself for getting out of bed today, and then work your way up to bigger accomplishments, like finishing 2 chapters of your textbook.

11. Keep a stress diary This is kind of a new concept for me, but it’s really great. How it works is that each day, you would write down all the things that made you stressed and how they made you stressed. This will help you identify the things you’re doing that’s causing your burnout, e.g.

Too long study hours? take regular breaks

Too much time in the same place? cycle your study environment

Not eating properly? set aside time to eat healthy meals at least 2 times a day

Not doing the things you love? schedule in time for that, e.g. during your long breaks

Not getting enough human interaction? make a study group

Too much negative thinking? adopt a positive mindset (you can always start small)

Not getting enough sleep? fix your sleep schedule

And that’s all I have for you guys this time. Hope these tips will help you manage your stress and study burnout whenever you have them. And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop an ask!

P.S. if any of you want to see the images in this post in better quality, click here (link to google drive)

How to plan your week based on your goals.

Hello people!

This week I’m back, as I promised, to share with you guys how I plan my week based on my goals.

Sometime ago I wondered why people plan their week? For the past me looked a lot more simple to plan daily what I needed to do each day, but a lot time it didn’t work. I almost always forgot to plan in the night and needed to plan during the day, sometimes it made me feel overwhelmed and with that constant feeling I was never on control.

So planning the week for me become really important, because even when I have a lot of things to do, I know everything already have a home and a time to make it and I didn’t have that anxiety about future things.

Goals

I started to plan my week because of my goals. Most of the time, when we set goals, they look vague and unachievable, but I went to search and I learn a lot of ways that taught me how to set possible and achievable goals. One of the tips was to break the big goals on smaller fractions of things I could make on my daily life, so everyday I could work towards them.

The formula is simple, but it’ll not work if you don’t put effort do make them happen.

So every year, like everyone I set my goals and resolutions, so I divide it on smaller goals to make it look achievable (If you didn’t set goals for this year, it’s never late, make your list now and start to work towards them).

So I chose the Year goal I’m going to work on, divide into all the other categories.

I gave you guys a really simple exemple, but I use this method for almost every goal I have in my life, for the small one and for the big ones.

Dump everything down

After having all your goals organized and ready to put them into your planner, you can see which task you’re going to do on the week. Here you can put everything down, every little thing you want to make this week, put on a piece of paper or on a note on your phone.

Time

Another thing I do is organize the time. For each task I see how much time I need to accomplish it.

After that I see the time I have to make this tasks on the week, so let’s suppose: You work 8 hours each day, sleep 8 hours (we dream about it too!), let’s put more 2 hours of commuting and 3 hours for personal stuff. Like this you have 3 hours in the day you can use for whatever you want, you can use this time for achieving your goals, you even don’t need all of it, maybe 1 hour is already enough. What I’m saying here is analyse your day to see the chunk of free time you have, sometimes we even don’t know we actually have time because we lost it scrolling through social media or doing things that don’t bring us any good.

But let’s work on another scenario too, let’s suppose you actually don’t have this 3 free hours each day, but you still want to work on your goals every week. Sometimes, make it everyday it’s not possible so it’s time to prioritize.

Prioritize.

Oh here we are, the thing you’ll see on every post about time management and planning. Why it’s so important?

When achieving goals, we always want to do everything in one month, we have 5 goals and work on all of them in one month. BUT, we all know that it’s not always possible.

So one thing you can do is choose a goal to work each month or each week, so you can achieve them without burning out or ruining your mental health.

See what’s more important to you and plan it down.

Sooo, after all of this I hope now you know how to plan your week based on your goals and it make them looks more possible. Of course, never forget that not always we’ll be able to do everything we planned and it’s totally okay! We’re all humans and not some type of productive machine, some days all we want is sleep and watch Netflix, you can plan this too if want.

That’s it for today! I hope you have a simple and organized week! Don’t forget to take care of yourself.

268 notes View Post

amandadiamond

3 years ago

Study in a brain-friendly way: Making a week plan

Write down all study appointments. For example: Lectures, work groups, seminars, deadlines for essays and exams.

Write down the already planned and important social appointments. For example: Working hours for a (voluntary) job, sports, important parties, dinner appointments.

Write down necessary time to relax. We recommend keeping at least one day free of study of study tasks, for example in the weekend. Also, take into consideration: Mornings after a late-night activity, and evenings after a long day of work.

Write down self-study time. When will you be able to study? Study appointments + self-study should comprise about a full-time job (40 hours per week). What will you do during this study time? When will you have breaks?

Now write down some buffer time. Life is full of surpries. In all lives unexpected events will occur. So, it’s absolutely necessary to plan in buffer time. In the time you plan in ‘in reserve’ you can complete tasks that have been delayed. If there is no (study) delay, buffer times becomes free time.

Think about the time-slots that are still empty. Are there specific things you would like to do in this time? If not, name them: ‘free time’. Especially if you’re a perfectionistic person, it’s good to also make your ‘free time’ SMART so you know when you are NOT going to worry about your studies.

480 notes View Post

amandadiamond

5 months ago

60 notes View Post

amandadiamond

6 years ago

self discipline tips

here are tips I discovered very recently:

something is better than nothing. 5 minutes of work are better than zero. Just because you missed something on your schedule doesn’t mean you can’t still work on it, even for 5 minutes. Grow and build on this.

second drafts / reviews can be done after.

Don’t think you are going to do your very best work on the first try. Take the weight of perfectionism off your shoulders.

don’t think about doing it. just do it as fast as you can.

build on your productivity, not your failures.

If you come from a past of procrastinating and now feel motivated to change and discipline yourself, do NOT try to do everything at once.

if you have a set of different goals to accomplish, begin with the most important one. Wait until the rotine of working for that one settles in (you feel productive and comfortable-ish), and then begin with the next. Repeat.

this way you’ll be building your way up and not juggling everything at the same time, hoping everything works out.

be patient with yourself, you’ll get there!

set smaller deadlines for your goals

have monthly and weekly-ish deadlines

e.g. if you are doing a project, due 22nd Feb, set personal deadlines, like have Introduction written by 2nd Feb, have Methods written by 10th Feb, have project complete by 18th Feb.

take them as seriously as you possibly can, don’t miss out on yourself.

write realistic daily tasks and don’t stop until you finish them. after them you can do whatever you want

on writing realistic daily tasks, the secret is knowing you can only do so much in one day, but trusting you can accomplish everything in the course of any period of time (a week, or 2 weeks or a month, etc.) because you will combine the work from all these different days.

it’s very tempting to write down all the tasks you need to accomplish in one day to just get over with it, but the real deal is you won’t accomplish half of them. You’ll feel very unproductive then, wich leads to demotivation.

spread daily tasks in the time necessary.

have a consistent sleep schedule.

if your mind isn’t ready everything will fall apart.

have one rest day per week where you plan nothing, do whatever you want except studying. this can be harder than you expect!

(don’t forget these are effective only if you actually put them into practice! good luck babes!!)

63K notes View Post

amandadiamond

3 years ago

Hey! I Made My First Graphic!! I Hope It Helps 🥰

hey! i made my first graphic!! i hope it helps 🥰

4K notes View Post

amandadiamond

5 years ago

hello pals!! this is a masterpost of half (or so) of the reference posts i reblogged/made. i tried uploading this masterpost as just one big masterpost but i had over 250 links so that failed and here i am again. here is part one, encapsulating studying + certain subjects which will be followed by part two (slightly more general) here! enjoy ✨

studying, school, + learning

what i’ve learnt throughout my years of being a student

notes, studying, and self-study resources

self-study resources

starting a studyblr

college + uni

how to get studying

online study guides

good habits

exams!

study management

school is starting soon

back to school (1)

back to school (2)

back to school (3)

back to school reminders

50 things to know for back to school

get prepared for a new school year

school resources

final grade calculator

writing emails to professors

cheap textbooks etc!!

save money on textbooks

school

first week of school stuff

testing effect

make studying fun

high school tips

101 study tips

types of learners

lazy kid’s guide to good grades

catching up on missed work

university tag

igcse resources

sat tag

act tag

ap tag

ib tag

a-level revision tips

diy school supplies

test taking tips

a complete guide to studying (well)

time to study!

groupwork (1)

groupwork (2)

tips tag

study effectively from textbooks

studying better

surviving your least favourite class

studying a subject you hate

success

doing research

understanding the question

pomodoro

study tips

tactile learning

how to concentrate

concentration

exam day

ultimate study masterpost

study tips for exams

school survival

studying on the go

how to read academic journal articles

how to study smart

how to remember anything in 3 steps

distraction-free studying

motivation

my study instagram + study blog

+ motivation links

motivation masterpost

stay motivated

get that homework done!

reaching goals

getting motivated

motivation through anime

writing

writing tag

recover an unsaved draft

uni writing resources

add citations!

annotating (1)

annotating (2)

advice for writing papers

writing helps

essay writing tips

how to write an essay

writing term research papers

active vs passive voice

writing masterpost

academic writing resources

essay checklist

reduce your word count

essay writing links

how to write and execute a huge piece of work

summary writing

the discursive/argumentative essay

the narrative essay + the descriptive essay

note-taking

note-taking in class

cornell note-taking

cornell (2)

lecture notes

illustrating notes

banners

maintaining good notes

note-taking

sticky notes

flashcards

colour-code + highlight effectively

colour-coding

studying from textbooks

study guides

upgrade your notes

illustrate your notes

mind maps

note-taking for different lecture types

ribbon drawing

smart highlighting

lettering ideas

how i take notes

note-taking tips

aesthetically pleasing notes

fake cursive notes

languages + literature

the ultimate english masterpost

shakespeare

literature masterpost

annotating

studying a foreign language

100+ legal sites to download literature

approaching poetry analysis

write a killer unprepared text essay

literary analysis research papers

classics

how to ace lit

reading lit

write a rhetorical analysis essay

practice oral comprehension!!

how i study for english lit

poetry analysis (1)

poetry analysis (2)

how i learn languages

self-studying languages

languages tag

how to open a new book

literary devices

literaty devices w/ printables

literature masterpost

grow your vocab

a guide to vocab

language learning tips + resources

SUPER IMPORTANT FOR POLYGLOTS

tips + tricks for learning a language

chinese

english

french

german

greek

italian

japanese

korean

latin

maltese

polish

russian

spanish

swedish

humanities + other subjects

studying humanities subjects

gathering materials for a humanities research paper

philosophy

philosophy tag

psychology tag

politics + government

women of wwi

ap world history

coding

design resources

sciences + math

how to memorise diagrams

biology (1)

biology (2)

studying biology

biology help

biology note-taking

anatomy + physiology

physiology

physics

ap physics

chemistry (1)

chemistry (2)

chemistry note-taking

studying chemistry

maths tag

how to study for math

how to study math (1)

how to study math (2)

math (1)

math (2)

math (3)

10 tips to excel in maths

avoid carelessness in calculations

succeed in math without really trying

math resources and links

algebra (1)

algebra (2)

precalculus

geometry

space + astronomy (1)

space + astronomy (2)

hope this helps + please check out part 2 as well!! ilysm 💗

ps here is a list of all my masterposts just in case 🐝

- helena xx

38K notes View Post

amandadiamond

5 years ago

Back to school series #1 - Making new habits and starting a new routine

Hey youuu! Welcome to the first post of my back to school mini series! I think these short posts may be a good way to put you in the best mood for your new academic year (and if you have already started, good luck!!).

Today I want to talk about how to adopt new habits to incorporate into a new routine. Whether you want to eat healthier, study more or even just flossing every night, this post is for you!!

So how do you start new habits in the easiest and most natural way? Here are my tips!!

First of all, remember to do things for you and not for the others. Don’t start a new habit because someone said you have to. A new habit has to be beneficial for yourself and has to make you feel good and proud of your accomplishments. Doing things for someone else never ends up well, and only cause pain and frustration! You have to make yourseld proud in the first place.

Make a list of the habits you already have and that you do everyday without even thinking about it (like brushing your teeth, showering, eating breakfast, going to bed, etc)

Then, make another list of the things that you must do and that are main priorities (going to school, walking your dog, etc).

Now take these 2 lists and think about how you are going to incorporate the new habit you want to adopt. For example, if your goal is to eat healthier but you go to school everyday, try to bring your own food from home at school. You have to include this new habit in the most naturally way so in the beginning it doesn’t feel like your day a big mess that stresses you out (because if it does, you’ll soon stop practicing the new habit)

Start small. But like, very small. If your goal is to get fit and you’ve never really worked out in your whole life, it will be hard for you to go to the gym everyday and you’ll probably end up unmotivated. That’s why you have to take little steps, steps that are so small you can’t find any excuse to not do them. For example, let’s say you want to drink more water. In order to do so, you can start by drinking a glass of water every morning. Then, add another glass of water at noon, etc. You can do this for every kind of habit. You want to workout more? Start doing 5 pushups everyday, then 8, then 10, etc. You want to study more? Add 30 minutes of studying everyday, then one hour, etc. Starting really small is the best way to gently incorporate a new habit and stick to it!

Put a reminder of your new habit. Make a tracker in your bullet journal, or just put an alarm on your phone that sounds like “hey honey it’s time for you to do your daily workout”. It’s easy to “forget” about the new habit, especially if you have other stuff going on in your head. Having the reminder helps you each time to take the decision of doing it or not and makes you think twice before not showing up for your new habit!

Reward yourself.This is the most important part : you did your homework? Tell yourself that you made a good job! You read only 2 pages on the textbook? Amazing! At least you did something! You just did 10 squats? Congrats you smokin’ hot babe! That’s how it works. That’s how you will stick to your new goals. Buy yourself new clothes or stationery if you managed to stick to your new habit for 2 weeks. Eat your favorite meal, do a face mask, anything. Every steps counts as much as the reward! Be proud of your accomplishments even if you judge them to be small (for example : you ate only one biscuit? Well done! A week ago you would have eaten the whole box!)

Find your motivation : I invite you to read my article that I wrote a few months ago about it :). Think about why you want to change your daily routine, what this will bring you in your everyday life and also imagine what your life will be in for example 2 months, 6 months, a year from now!! For me it’s always a big mood booster to think this way !

It is said that you have to stick to a new habit for at least 3 weeks in order to make it part of your new routine so keep going !!

I hope these tips will help build new routines that will get you closer from your goals.

What habits do you want to incorporate in your routine guys? Let me know in the comments!

And if you liked this post, please let me know by liking and/or reblogging it :) You can also follow me on my INSTAGRAM 💕💕💕

727 notes View Post

amandadiamond

5 years ago

How I Got Straight A’s in My First Year of University

I was so proud of myself when I received firsts (that’s A’s for those not attending uni in the UK) on all of my assessments in my first year at university. Here are some tips for y’all to try at any point in university. They may be specific at times to my experience—my degree is in the social sciences and humanities, and I’m studying in the UK—but I did try to make them more generally applicable, and hopefully they should be helpful to someone out there.

Part One: Everyday Study Routine

Before the start of the academic year, try to get in a little bit of preparation. See if there are any syllabi or reading lists posted online. You don’t have to pour over them, of course, but do attempt to do something, and have a basic grasp on what will be covered in your classes.

Go to all your lectures and seminars. Unless you absolutely have to miss class because you are ill or have an important obligation to take care of, it’s really important to attend your lectures every day. (Note: if you are struggling with mental or chronic illness or a disability, don’t beat yourself up if you keep missing class. Please take care of yourself.) You may be tempted to just look at the PowerPoint presentation online, but it’s much more effective to be there in person. Often the lecturer may include information or extra explanations which are not included in the presentation. It will also allow you to process the information aurally as well as visually, and you will have the added benefit of taking notes too. You may also be able to ask questions.

Do all the pre-reading for lectures. I know it’s tempting to put it off, but try to work it into your daily routine (because you will have reading to do every day). Inevitably, there will be times where you slip up and don’t have time to finish. If this happens, make sure you catch up on it at some point, because it’s very important to solidifying the concepts you are learning about. Also, the more you read in general, the better you will become at reading (and also writing).

Take diligent notes (for both your lectures and pre-reading), and keep them organized. I prefer to handwrite in a notebook, as it helps me synthesize information rather than just typing it out verbatim—but it is totally up to you. If you do use a notebook, make a table of contents on the first page, where you write the date, topic, class, and page numbers of each set of notes you take. I think it’s a great idea to include your own thoughts and opinions in notes, or linking concepts you are learning to concepts you already know about.

If you have the time, make sure to be reading books/essays/articles and engaging with ideas outside of your regular syllabus. This is one of the most important techniques (in my experience, at least) when it comes to writing essays and answering exam questions. Evidence of wider reading around a topic is a great way to boost the credibility of your argument. It also does wonders to solidify and broaden your conceptualization of certain ideas you may have covered in your classes.

Where possible, try to contribute (as much as you feel comfortable) in seminars. If you are very quiet and reserved, that is totally okay too. I’m with you. But it has helped me tremendously in the past year to push myself to speak up more often in seminars. Talking in seminars allows you to clarify concepts and engage more deeply with the material being discussed (and it might impress your seminar tutor too, though this is secondary to the learning in my opinion).

If you have some nerdy-ass friends, talk with them about your ideas and what you’re both learning in your courses. I can’t tell you the number of essays I’ve written which actually have blossomed out of conversations I’ve had with friends, where they’ve exposed me to topics I’d never heard of before or broadened my view of a concept. Learning from each other in a casual and fun setting is amazing!

Part Two: Assessment Time

When you are given notice about big assignments coming up, such as essays or group projects, try to start working on them ASAP. Trust me, I know how hard it is. This is coming from someone who has dealt for years with chronic procrastination issues and nearly didn’t graduate from high school because of it. But you must start planning as soon as you possibly can, because the due date will come screaming up and before you know it, it’ll be the night before the deadline and you won’t have a clue what you’re writing about. Work it into your daily schedule if you have to. One great tip is to write down the deadline as being earlier (say, a week earlier) than what it actually is. This will prompt you to start earlier than you normally would have.

Do a shitload of reading, widely, from multiple sources. Read everything you can on the topic you are doing your assignment on. For a basic literature review, this means looking through at least 20+ sources. That doesn’t mean carefully perusing each one front to back; it means looking through all the relevant literature to find a few great sources which will really give you a coherent argument and a big picture of the topic at hand.

Keep your sources organized. I use Paperpile, which is a Chrome extension that allows you to save and organize academic sources. I make a folder for each assessment I am working on, and anything I find relevant to my topic, I save it to the folder. This will be a life saver for you when you actually go to plan your paper and also do the referencing.

Content is important, but perhaps even more important is your argument and structure. This mostly applies to essays, but you can apply it to other types of assessments too. Try not to structure your argument in terms of blocks of content—e.g. Paragraph 1 is about Topic A, Paragraph 2 is about Topic B—but rather in terms of how you are laying out your argument. Make sure each part of your essay flows into the next, so that you are, for example, setting up a kind of dialogue or narrative between the different sources you’re using. Also ensure that any point you are making clearly relates back to your main thesis.

If you’re a perfectionist like me: train yourself to remember that there is no such thing as perfect. Try to imagine what the perfect essay would be like. Can you imagine it? It’s probably pretty difficult, right? That’s because there is no such thing as a perfect assignment. Remind yourself of this, constantly. Tell yourself that you will be okay with just doing your very best. If you think about it logically: handing in something that is perhaps not your best ever, but handing it in on time and doing pretty well, is infinitely better than attempting to have a “perfect” essay but handing it in late and failing the assignment.

I hope this helped some of you! Best of luck and happy studying this year—go knock ‘em out! xo

10K notes View Post

amandadiamond

3 years ago