[ One Hundred Days Of Productivity — 5/100 ]

do things badly. make messy origami that vaguely resembles a crane, play piano with clashing notes, draw like you’re a child and dont care what it looks like, make mistakes and fail and mess up but for the love of god TRY.

21/07/20

summer studying challenge, 21st july: what is the best holiday you’ve been on?

definitely the first time i went on a holiday to a warm country, to menorca in 2017 with my family.

today was spent colouring in a gbbo colouring book, watching arrested development, and coding! i’m learning python2 using codecademy and i’m trying some of the python challenges. (i completed level 1 today and was SO excited by it.)

todays affirmations: i am brave. i know exactly what packages to install for my code to run. ROOT cannot hurt me.

Webb captures the Rings of Giant Planets

22/07/20

summer studying challenge, 22nd july: what’s your dream holiday?

i would love to go to iceland one day, partly because it looks like such a beautiful country but also because i’d love to see the aurora borealis!

14/07/20

summer studying challenge 2: have your plans changed at all because of the pandemic?

YUP. i was meant to be at a space program at a university in june which got cancelled, me and my friends were going to go on a cycling holiday on a west coast island, and all in all i didn’t plan on feeling so down lmao!

last night i stayed up until 4am to watch for comet NEOWISE which i saw [first picture, faint smudge just above the tree in the centre] and was completely amazed by :D unfortunately i waited for three hours after seeing it to get a second look, but the clouds were very stubborn :( i am so tired today though lol

DEAN VILLAGE, EDINBURGH.

How to Handle Having TOO MUCH To Do

So let’s say you’re in the same boat I am (this is a running theme, have you noticed?) and you’ve just got, like, SO MUCH STUFF that HAS to get done YESTERDAY or you will DIE (or fail/get fired/mope). Everything needs to be done yesterday, you’re sick, and for whatever reason you are focusing on the least important stuff first. What to do!

Take a deep breath, because this is a boot camp in prioritization.

Make a 3 by 4 grid. Make it pretty big. The line above your top row goes like this: Due YESTERDAY - due TOMORROW - due LATER. Along the side, write: Takes 5 min - Takes 30 min - Takes hours - Takes DAYS.

Divide ALL your tasks into one of these squares, based on how much work you still have to do. A thank you note for a present you received two weeks ago? That takes 5 minutes and was due YESTERDAY. Put it in that square. A five page paper that’s due tomorrow? That takes an hour/hours, place it appropriately. Tomorrow’s speech you just need to rehearse? Half an hour, due TOMORROW. Do the same for ALL of your tasks

Your priority goes like this:

5 minutes due YESTERDAY

5 minutes due TOMORROW

Half-hour due YESTERDAY

Half-hour due TOMORROW

Hours due YESTERDAY

Hours due TOMORROW

5 minutes due LATER

Half-hour due LATER

Hours due LATER

DAYS due YESTERDAY

DAYS due TOMORROW

DAYS due LATER

At this point you just go down the list in each section. If something feels especially urgent, for whatever reason - a certain professor is hounding you, you’re especially worried about that speech, whatever - you can bump that up to the top of the entire list. However, going through the list like this is what I find most efficient.

Some people do like to save the 5 minute tasks for kind of a break between longer-running tasks. If that’s what you want to try, go for it! You’re the one studying here.

So that’s how to prioritize. Now, how to actually do shit? That’s where the 20/10 method comes in. It’s simple: do stuff like a stuff-doing FIEND for 20 minutes, then take a ten minute break and do whatever you want. Repeat ad infinitum. It’s how I’ve gotten through my to do list, concussed and everything.

You’ve got this. Get a drink and start - we can do our stuff together!

13/08/20

first day back at school!! so so lovely to be back, i missed it so much. despite the confusing one-way system i loved being back and seeing my friends & teachers & wonderful school. plus my timetable has loads of free periods this year which i’m super happy about.

summer (even though it’s not my summer holiday anymore lol) studying challenge: what is your favourite ice cream flavour?

raspberry ripple!

[ one hundred days of productivity: 1/100]

wed 14 august

first day of school! an exhausting and mentally trying day as i found out specific exam results and wasnt particularly happy with some, basically had to physically refrain myself from killing my old modern studies teacher when i found out i dropped 23% from the mock exam. but otherwise i’m enjoying learning new things again, especially maths at the moment because i quite like trigonometry.