Preparing for a new year of studying whether it’s at school or at university is certainly not easy. A lot of the time, you might make promises or set goals.
These could range from staying on top of your homework to aiming to attend ALL of your lectures. Yet, for most of us, we fail to achieve these goals. This could be out of shear laziness or a tendency to resist work we simply don’t enjoy. All of these things connect to the value of discipline.
Preparing for school or uni requires more than motivation and an urge to learn and become ‘productive’.
There’s is a considerable level of technical proficiency involved in succeeding throughout your studies and it’s the reason why only a few people can achieve straight As throughout their exams and coursework.
So with the beginning of a brand new year for most of us of difficult studies and hardwork and with some of us already beginning our years of study this September, here are some neat and essential ways that your can maximise your potential, start that road to success and increase your technical proficiency to work hard and make the most of this academic year!
All these points link to the points down below in some way or another and they are absolutely crucial if you want to make the most of uni or college!
If there is any way that you’re looking for to get a head start over everyone else studying with you this year, it’s to make sure that your mind has caught up on anything that you’ve been taught prior to this year!
This is especially important for us 2nd, 3rd or 4th year students carrying on our studies towards a degree or specific qualification.
Making sure that you understand as much as you can that you learnt from last year, will ensure that learning the new stuff on top of this, will be much easier and stress free.
This is especially something that separates the good students from the greats. Being able to sharpen your technical proficiency at understanding new knowledge can often require previous knowledge to aid this. And what better way to do so than looking over past notes, lectures and books?
Also, I can understand the effort needed to look over your work from the previous year. It can be time consuming and especially eat into your well-deserved summer holiday!
Nonetheless, this links to the idea of ‘paying the price’ and making sacrifices. To excel in your uni, school or college work, you must understand the price you have to pay achieve that road to success.
So sharpen your understanding of core topics and unlock the knowledge again, which has been hidden at the back of your mind! It will only give you a head start for the year ahead!
Getting a plan of study in place is essential for maximising your productive potential!
That’s because following a strict schedule can put less stress on your brain and waste less time making informed decisions on what to day on a day-to-day basis.
In fact, getting a plan check in place for uni or college isn’t solely limited to your studies and work. It generally involves anything outside of uni or college as well.
Whether, it’s cooking and meal prepping, going to the gym, meeting with friends or even relaxing and watching Disney shows, everything you need on a day-to-day basis will somewhat have an impact on how well you study.
Planning the time that you wake up, when you go to the gym, library and cook is essential for minimising the time it takes you to fixate on tasks and overthink whether or not it’s rational to do certain things. I can assure you that this can be catastrophic to your productive potential!
So take some little time after you read this or just before you go back to uni, school or college to get a solid schedule in place. If you need to tweak it, there’s no harm in doing so later down the line, as long as you follow your plan check strictly!
Monthly goals, daily goals, weekly goals. It doesn’t matter what goals they are, as long as they are meaningful and get you on track to making the most out of the academic year!
Setting goals is actually a great way to answer the question, “How to overcome laziness and procrastination“.
It opens up opportunities to set yourself up with rewards that feel well-deserved after considerable hard-work. Moreover, developing a habit of setting yourself tasks that need to be completed within a set time-limit is a perfect way to stop procrastinating on work.
What you need to do to be able to accomplish these tasks is enter your “flow state”!
“What is a flow state?” you might be wondering.
It’s to put it simply, the ability to do consistent levels of work without distraction for a long-period of time.
It’s easy to set goals and objectives for yourself, but it’s difficult to accomplish them, especially if you can’t harness your own flow state.
There are so many ways to find your flowstate. Whether it’s optimising your workspace, experimenting with different ways of studying or speaking to some friends about how they study, finding your flowstate can be easier than you think!
In general, many people are able to enter a flowstate based on how badly they want to achieve those goals. I am a firm believer that if you really want to achieve something, you will naturally put the effort in to do accomplish it.
So if you want to set daily goals or monthly goals, I would highly recommend that they are ones that are meaningful to you and make you want to work towards them!
An ideal work-environment is absolutely essential for maximum productivity.
In fact you can check out 7 ways you can improve your workspace for maximum productivity right here!
Toput it simply, your workspace plays a vital role in how well you study. Whether your studying at home in your room or at university or college in campus accommodation, make sure that you optimise your workspace to create a stimulating working-environment where you can think properly and work productively!
This could involve keeping your room tidy or adding some plants to make the place feel more calm and mentally stimulating.
In fact, your work-environment is not solely linked to where you study, but also who you surround yourself with.
Because just remember, it’s important to surround yourself with people who are where you want to be or who have similar goals or interests as you. You are only the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with after all!
Doing so allows you adopt their mindset, which in most if not all cases, SHOULD be a growth mindset. If you want to get those A grades, surround yourself with meetup groups and compassionate friends who also want those amazing grades.
So before you begin studying or if you are in school right now, identify those people and develop an amazing relationship with them. It will be amazing for the long-term!
Having a fresh and strong mentality is important when entering the year. It’s what gives you some motivation which is always certainly beneficial for you to study.
But in order to have a strong mind, we must be fit and in shape. That is why you need to make sure you exercise before entering your studies.
Exercise is what helps to improve your mood and gets blood pumping to your brain. It helps wash out any negativity in your mind that can stimulate laziness by producing endorphins, the “happy” chemical that can help improve your mood.
This is especially essential for studying, because your mood can greatly determine how much effort you put into your uni, school or college work.
With a happy mood, comes the ability to do more work. It allows you to enter your flow state, which we mentioned in our previous point!
Exercise can come in many forms. It can be as simple as doing push-ups on an exercise mat or throwing a ball in the park.
Perhaps you want to indulge in your favourite sport, whether that be swimming or even something as fancy as go-karting. Whatever works for you, make sure you exercise before and during your uni or college work to give yourself a mood boost and edge over everyone you’re studying with!
It’s definitely worth it!
As a little summary, preparing for a challenging year of studying is certainly a laborious task for the majority of people out there.
But, that doesn’t make it impossible to achieve. As long as you realise the price you have to pay, the discipline you need and the requirements you have to achieve to maximise your productive potential, there is no doubt you can absolutely make the most out of the year ahead.
So good luck to everyone entering school, college or university! This year is YOUR year to shine and journey on the road to success!
