What to do to stay motivated for exams?

“Dude, I just cant!”

Shouted Abhinav when I asked what’s up with his studies.

“I just can’t sit down, open pages and began to study. The course is too much, so is the pressure. I just want to sit back binge watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and relax. This boards nonsense has taken out the life from me. This is all too much.”

And he continued with his anti-exams rant for a while, just like any other student who has an exam in few months.

Almost always attempting to do what you need to study to catch up with reading from previous weeks sounds like a drag.

“Do I understand these texts, too?”

“Am I going to be able to compose something informative and important to me?”

“Am I trying to do the right thing, huh? ‘

‘Am I strong enough to do that?”

“Others tend to be right at the pinnacle of things than I am”

“What if I’m stupid?”

Abhinav continued his rambling. I can’t helped but noticed the fluency of his spoken English, gosh this kid is smart. Even in the moment of panic, and anxiety driven boohoo, he still have the command that makes everyone look him in awe, yet he is completely ignorant about it.

The minute you start filling your brain with useless thoughts like “I’m not enough of this”, “I wish I had this”, “I wish I looked like that”, “I’m too fat to wear that”, “I have no self-control”, “I’m bad at math”, etc. well guess what : you’ll still be bad at math, you’ll stay sad and in months from now you’ll be stuck in the same place.

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What can help you when you feel burned out?

• Watch a comedy series or movie. Its far better than a motivational video. Relax a lot while studying, let your mind get a good grasp of the concept and then proceed to study.
• Do something entirely different. Set aside a time where you don’t study. A time block where you let the sponge in your head absorb the water and regain its natural shape.
• Brain dump. Grab a piece of paper and write whatever in your mind. From your fantasy to the urge to kill your teacher, just let it out. Don’t let these ideas take roots in your head. Keep dumping the brain trash. Not only this will help you to increase your focus, but also it will increase your productivity, writing speed, and give room to learn.
• Procrastination. We all do it, the urge to keep tasks of bay is just too much to resist. Use your weakness as your biggest strength. Instead of beating yourself over it, do it mindfully.
• Use the power of imagination. Don’t think about what will Priya say when you her that your 100%, instead imagination yourself studying Math. Go to bed, lie down and began visualizing yourself solving equations of math and the very next day, you will be filling registers doing all calculations.
• Time blocking. This is the method I came across while I was drooling over how aesthetic these crazy-talented youtubers are. The one that publish content on calligraphy, and Bullet journal. For a student, I think this would work. Plan the day-to-day predictable stuff and draw the random stuff on the bars. The bars can be homework, reading, study, programs, etc.
• For me, Pomodoro works as a kick-starter. I don’t use it throughout the day when I’m studying but just to start my studying. 45 minutes of focused studying, followed by 15 minutes of break, extendable to 30 minutes.
• Reward & Punishment. The thing with this method of taking yourself out of the burnt zone is, it sucks! Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in for eating chocolates after completing 10 question. But, recent study shows that Reward and punishment motivate behavior, but it is unclear exactly how they impact skill performance and whether the effect varies across skills. Overall, we saw little effect of reward on either learning or retention. Punishment had no effect on skill retention. So, try to keep the reward as scoring 100% and punishment as doing 100 pushups or running or something you physically cannot do. The fear will work as motivator to study.
• “Study Spots”. Don’t have a fix spot. Study at different places. Not only this will make you independent of locations but also make your neurons stronger and hence you will learn better.
• Start with the basics. For examples, if you are solving question of Integration, rote the formulae before solving the questions so that you don’t feel stressed and like you don’t know anything. And then move on the concepts of integration by parts, limits, etc.

These are the tips I and many top scorers I know use to keep the feeling of failure at bay and smash the hell of the exam.

What to do to take a break from studying:

• set a time limit
• go for a walk
• pet your dog/cat/pet
• listen to music (that isn’t your study music)
• take a shower
• make a meal or snack
• call/text a friend for support
• lie down, close your eyes for a bit

What not to do:

• watch 10 YouTube videos and then suddenly its midnight
• scroll through Instagram mindlessly
• if you do this your mind is still working !!! and not relaxing !!!
• you’re not really refreshed when you come back!
• that’s not a break, that’s procrastination.
• but also, we’re all only human, so every few breaks don’t feel too guilty watching a short YouTube video/checking your Snapchat. (Add me: sammathur4)

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Footnotes:

1. Time Blocks

2. Research on Reward and Punishment: The impact of reward and punishment on skill learning depends on task demands

With boards, semesters and other competitive exams around the block, hope this guide helps you.

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Hello there, if we are meeting for the first time, I am Saksham Mathur. I am very passionate about helping other via any means. If you feel that this article has helped you, drop a clap, maybe two.