Study Productivity - Blog Posts

15th April 2024

I've been ignoring my language course for the past 7+ months and my final exam for it is coming closer day by day T-T

Overall a productive day...

Today I :

Completed 5 lessons with grammar in Arabic

Attended my Arabic class

Finished my homework

Read 100+ pages (still counting)

Completed a novel

Total study time: 1 hour 30 mins

Affirmations i use to study/get things done!

"You've prepared the whole year for this. Don't let it go to waste." "I can and I will." "It doesn't matter how hard it takes to reach my goal." "It doesn't matter if the other person is more talented than you. There's no rule for them to work more harder than you." "You can wake up anyday and decide to change the person that you are." "Who cares if I'm pretty if I fail my finals?" "One day, you'll leave this world behind so live a life that you'll remember." "If it's a million to one. I'm gonna be that one.” "You can't be perfect. No one can. But you can try to be the best." "Failure is a part of success. Use it in the best way possible." "You are more than capable of handling yourself and your textbooks." "Study like you haven't prayed and pray like you haven't studied." "You came this far only to come this far?" "There is no way I'm going to come back with something I don't like." "Study because learning is better than being ignorant." "Grades aren't everything but they do make your life somewhat easier." "I know more than i think I do." “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”  "Progress > Perfection." "You're doing this for you. Only you. Don't forget that."

It's okay to be bad at something new. Normalize people who want to keep trying without them feeling ashamed for being bad at it.

Weekly Goals

I've been really lazy these past two weeks since summer break started so i think this is a good way to track my progress and productivity.

Complete a course on digital marketing (which I was ignoring for a long time)

Finish atleast 2 books

Complete atleast 5+ lessons in Arabic

Start attending summer course classes (also Arabic)

Clean my closet

Wake up alittle earlier (it's not gonna happen but let's believe it will)

Watch a movie

When the teacher asks you if you have any questions and you have the urge to say "The whole syllabus"

Study Tip - 3

Something I've seen quite a lot nowadays is people studying with timers, like, I still don't understand it... I've asked many people and they're like "It helps us to finish the goal while managing time and we complete our revision sooner"

But the main thing is, they don't remember it for more than a few hours or days... for me the goal is to complete the task perfectly and not to complete it faster than anyone.

Because when you keep looking at the clock, you're worried more about the time than the work. You're more excited about getting a break after that specific time than the actual studying. That is why, when i study, I face towards an empty wall and I can easily work without worrying about the time.

Don't set a time limit for any work, you'll realise how much work you'll actually get done when you're not looking at the clock.

Of course, this doesn't have to work for you but I think that this could help you expand your average study time.

No harm trying it :)

Introduction :)

I know I'm doing this kinda late but it's fine, let's start. Generally I'm a very boring person so anyways xD

About myself:

Isabelle

She/Her

17

English Major

INFP-T

Hobbies:

Reading

Writing

Theatre

Art

Code

Interests:

Literature. Books. Poetry. Quotes. Languages. Miraculous. TV shows (only some). Classics. Jewelry (only black). Nature. Coffee. Photography. Journaling. Cats. Roses. Fan fiction.

Reason for this blog?

I needed motivation to study, and it looked like a good way to monitor my day-to-day progress, hence the name "study-diaries". No promises about being consistent T-T

What can you find here?

Study tips, study progress, techniques, ranting, mental health reminders, books, languages, quotes, motivation etc etc... In short, anything related to studying, languages, books and literature, mental health and self-care.

Note: Whatever pictures I use are not mine unless I specify that they are mine! Most of them are from Pinterest and credits go to their original owner.

Tips for understanding complex topics

I've struggled with this but I'm adapting, you know? So here are some of my tips I use for this :)

If you can't understand it at once, do not think that it is hard

Many times, the topic itself if simple but the way the textbook has described it is complex so go and search for related videos and Google about it until you've got a hint about what it is.

If it's complicated, divide the sentence.

When you find yourself getting completely lost in a topic while banging your head against the wall because it's so confusing.... separate each part of the sentence while you write each part as you say it out loud. It'll help you to atleast get a short idea about the subject.

Read! Read! Read!

Read it over and over again and underline the words you think are important, write them down, explain it to yourself, draw small diagrams around your notes, connect them through visual representation. The more you use different types of senses, the better you understand it.

Give yourself time.

Let yourself grasp what the whole topic is about, do not under any circumstances have a time limit for difficult topics. I took days just to understand how Javascript loops work and I'm still not fully clear about it but i can explain the general, very basic purpose of it.

Explain it to someone or yourself

The best way to learn is to teach, this actually does work. It helps you to put your understanding in words and clear any underlying questions. And lastly...

Handwritten notes!

I cannot stress this enough but things that you've written down generally stay in your memory for longer durations. I also prefer handwritten notes to digital ones cause personally it works better.

Hope this helps! :D

The one thing that school definitely did -> Mess up my sleep schedule.

25.03.24

Day 8/ Day 8

I know it was a 9 day thing but it was because I had to go to school tomorrow but now I don't need to cause I just dropped by picked up my things and certificates etc etc... so my break starts here!!

The exam was alright, kinda unexpected paper but it's done now!

So what am i gonna do for 2 whole months?

Finish a course that I've been ignoring for way too long

Read as much as I can

Post some study related content here

I'll be posting a weekly reading challenge later on, like cause I wanna actually see how i complete it xD

24.03.24

Day 7/ Day 9

Okay, only 1 more day until suffering kinda ends for like 2 months? Anyway, it was a productive day but I still have a ton of stuff to revise.

Completed:

Part IV of 17 lessons out of like 33 (T-T)

Revised MCQs

Need to revise:

Part IV of 16 more lessons

Gonna be a long night

Total hours of study: 6 hours and still counting (Updated: 8 hours)

23.03.24

Day 6/ Day 9

It was a really productive day to be honest, i completed:

Part I - III in about 29 lessons

Revised notes

Wrote some new notes

(An overall, we have 4 parts in each lesson and totally we have about 33 lessons T-T)

Total hours of study: 8 hours {I shocked myself too, I'm damn tired}

Discussion after an exam:-

Friend 1: You know, for the first four MCQs we got only C! Friend 2: I got D for everything.... Me: uh... I got an A,B,D,C *The three of us staring at each other realising we are in deep trouble* A classmate: I got A,B, A, B *Silence*

22.03.24

Day 5/ Day 9

Not a very productive day but I did:

Glance through the important questions and case studies

Revised MCQs

Total hours of studying: 1 hour 30 mins

21.03.24

Day 4/ Day 9

I completed my exam today and nothing else unless reading an extremely cringey e-book counts xD

So yeah... and my exam was meh... not too good, not too bad. I still have like one exam left and then I'm done with junior year!

20.03.24

Day 3/ Day 9... It's the night before my 2nd last exam, gosh, I want to get it done T-T

Despite my exam being tomorrow, I ended up reading an e-book for the majority of the time but nevertheless i revised quite a lot...

Things i completed today:

Finished almost the whole textbook

Revised MCQs

Watched an hour of lectures covering important topics

Need to complete:

Review the notes one last time today (✓)

Revising MCQs again (will complete early in the morning)

Revising 4 important lessons again (✓)

Review 8 important questions/topics (✓)

Total hours of study (still counting): 4 hours

Updated: Total hours of study- 6 hours

19.03.24

Today was a lazy day, I just slept and studied for only sometime... But Day 2 is done!

Day 2/Day 9

Today i completed:

Two lessons in accounts

Revised MCQs

Reviewed notes

Total hours of study: 2 hours

18.03.24

I'm gonna start a countdown till my last working day of junior year which is 26.03.24 so...

Day 1/Day 9

Over-all, a productive day, i studied for six hours (still counting) and completed:

Revised 7 lessons in Business Studies

Revised some important questions

Did some previous year questions in Accounts

Reviewed notes

Things I have to complete in Accounts:

Review more notes (✓)

Revise 3-4 lessons (✓)

Revise MCQs (do not have the energy T-T)

Updated:

Total hours of study: 7 hours 30 mins

16.03.24

Today was kinda productive to be honest, i finished:

Four lessons in accounts

Completed a previous year question paper

Reviewed notes

How do you actually use previous question papers?

Here's the thing, I've read a whole lot of things tips for this but none have worked for me, so this may not work for you either but, there's no harm in experimenting, right?

Get the question papers

Now, look through the papers...

You need not set a timer and practice these questions but instead, check for a pattern or any format.

Like, a question is being repeated for every damn test and you haven't studied it? It's likely that it will be asked for the next test.

You see questions from certain lessons being repeated only from the same section? Focus on it.

And for this, you don't even need like previous year papers, even the mock tests or suprise quizzes can be used to identify which lessons are important.

Search for a pattern, focus on it and shape it

Then, when you've mostly gone through all the papers, go through the questions which they've repeated like once or twice and be sure that you can answer any question from those papers you have. You can go through the rest of the material a little slower.

Mind this that all tips may not work for you and that is completely fine :)

Study Progress

(Just saying, my notes are not so aesthetic and they're kinda messy so xD)

An over-all (and first) update on my study progress today...

I revised about 7-8 lessons in Computer Science

Did a short revision of MCQs in Economics.

In general, it was an alright productive day and yeah.