TIME MANAGEMENT & STUDYING
Useful tips and tricks on how to study and manage your time better from fellow UIC students.
JUNE 2021 ARTICLES
TIPS FOR THE FINAL EXAM YOU SHOULD NOT MISS
by Jiah
The 2021 spring semester is coming to an end, and all Yonseians are preparing for their final exam coming up in a few more weeks. You must be thinking about how to excel at the final - what should you prepare to get good grades? This article is absolutely for you ^^
Tip #1: Create a revision schedule as soon as possible
For me, having a schedule to stick to helps me to track my studying of all courses with the entire plan, thus, providing me with a sense of safety. However, my advice is that your plan should not be too detailed, otherwise, you may be stressed. From my own experience, I just jot down around 3-5 tasks that I need to complete along the day. And after completing all of them, I can feel a sense of accomplishment, hence, boosting my mood, determination and confidence about the exam.
Tip #2: Revise your class materials in one easy-reading format
What I did is re-read all class material, including readings and self note-taking 1 or 2 weeks before the exam and re-arrange them in just 1 document. By doing so, I can, firstly, systemise the contents of the revision, and secondly, know which part is the most important. My most used format is Google-document thanks to its convenience that I can review it in all circumstances as long as I have my phone/laptop in hand. If you have another platform to review, feel free to share it with us!
Tip #3: Do not panic to change your daily routine because of the exam
It is totally common that as soon as the exam days are coming, many people tend to change their daily routine. By this I mean, students usually lack sleep, eat junk food, and consume such a high amount of caffeine during the exam period. Factually, these habits only contribute to the deterioration of your health, consequently, leading to bad exam results. Too little sleep makes students feel dizzy all day long, then they drink a lot of coffee, which boosts their “waking-up” condition. But in fact, that “waking-up” condition is not real, after all, they still feel sleepy, and even more dizzy than they felt before. Thus, my advice is the faster the exam is coming, the more vital it is for students to live healthily. Having a decent meal, a decent sleep definitely will assure your health, hence, getting things done is a piece of cake for you.
TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS FOR 'LAZY PERFECTIONISTS'
by Yunjae Lee
Final terms are coming soon, and Yonsei students are spending hectic days lately. There are so many exams, term papers and group projects, but professors don’t seem to care how busy we are. We are taking online classes, but we’re still busy during the mid-term/final-term weeks. Then, how do we manage our time and make enough time to study? Today, I’m going to share some of my time-management tips.
I’m kind of a person who plans everything ahead. I can call myself a perfectionist. This might sound like I am a hard-working, perfect person, but that is not the case. I am a lazy perfectionist – I make perfect plans, but I’m not sure if I’m going to keep them. Some days, in the worst case, I procrastinate the whole day and ignore the whole plan. Also, the problem with making a ‘perfect plan’ is that I feel pressured to strictly adhere to what I’ve planned. This makes me feel anxious and stressed because it gives me the fear that I might not be able to finish my tasks in time.
If you find yourself relating to this, here’s how I solved my ‘perfectionist problems.’ First, I know it is unrealistic to say ‘Don’t plan ahead, just wing everything’ for people who feel safe when they plan in advance. But here’s an alternative: plan ahead, but just roughly so you can be flexible. Do not decide every specific thing to do for a day. As you work on your things, flexibly decide what you’re going to do for the rest of the day.
Second, do not try to finish everything every day, but set a ‘minimum goal.’ Do not overestimate and think that you can do many things in a day. Set a minimum, realistic goal that you can achieve for each day. For example, don’t try to touch on everything in one day, but set the smallest goal such as “finish reading one chapter for Economics class.’ The reason why perfectionists feel anxious about keeping their plans is because their plans are unrealistic.
Finally, just start doing it! This applies to everyone. If there are too many things to do, it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed about the number of things you need to finish. You may feel anxious, frustrated, or even depressed (we’ve all been there). But as you start doing your tasks, even the smallest things, this feeling will fade away. Don’t try to finish everything at first. Don’t think about the list of things you need to do and feel stressed. Just start working on one small thing and finish it. You’ll feel much better, even though you haven’t finished everything yet. This will give you a good start to finish the rest of the things.
APRIL 2021 ARTICLES
MY STUDYING METHODS
by Michelle Ganzorig
Avoid watching too much youtube, instead of that, you could be napping, being social or doing school work. Youtube is a distraction from the present, don’t be fooled by it & stick to building your life & not enjoy watching the lives of others online.
Taking notes during heavy reading is extremely effective. Instead of passively reading & not actually writing down pertinent points, you’re just making it harder for yourself as you’ll have to go back to the passage to find the points.
It is common for college students to sleep after 12am & have difficulty concentrating in class. It’s important to be fully alert during lectures so you can fully absorb the information being presented. This will speed up learning. I would recommend adjusting your routine so it lines up with your circadian rhythm, that way you take advantage of natural light & sleep when it’s dark. This will simply make time management easier.
For me, having a way to note down deadlines is key to backward planning. Whether it’s a calendar or an agenda, noting down deadlines will enable you to plan out your days. Our brains are programmed to hold onto information. If one tries to cram all the deadlines into their brain, they will be using brainpower for something that could otherwise easily be put onto paper. Doing so will help you de-stress & lift a burden from your shoulders.
Set goals that are achievable. If one sets ones that are not feasible, it may be deceiving & result in a mental slump. To avoid these interruptions, consistent goal-setting & effort will guarantee short-term & eventually long-term success. You can tick the goals you’ve achieved & before you know it, you will have achieved bigger feats!
Social life is important in preserving your mental health, in turn, it will give you a good work/life balance. Try not to ostracize yourself from upcoming social gatherings, events, etc. School tampers with one’s sanity, so to bring it back to equilibrium, shoot up the oxytocin! Being in the midst of an invigorating company will refuel you. Choose your friends carefully & don’t settle for toxic friendships.
DECEMBER 2020 ARTICLES
3 TIPS FOR ONLINE FINALS
By Jiah Khanh
Finals are coming, and I bet that you all are cramming for it. However, this semester's final examination will be very different from previous ones as it will be conducted online. Are you wondering how to get good results in the online final? Don't worry, here are 3 ultimate tips will help you excel this examination period:
1. Time management
As you are all staying at home and taking classes online, numerous distractions prevent you from concentrating on studying. Therefore, a detailed revision plan for each day might be a big “should" for every student. It will help you to organize your timetable efficiently and get rid of overlapping tasks. You can plan your schedule by jotting them down in a small notebook or even download an app on your phone. However, since finals week is a stressful period, remember to save some time for rest and leisure activities. It will definitely help you relax after hours of cramming for revision.
2. Healthy meal
Students tend to have fast-food for meals during the examination as it takes little time to order and eat. However, fast-food may make you feel bloated, puffy, and sleepy after finishing the meal. So during the COVID-19 pandemic situation, it would be better if you can save some time in a day for cooking for yourself. It both strengthens your health and helps reduce stress since you are studying all day.
3. Virtual study group
Is it impossible to study in a group during the social-distancing period? The answer is: nothing is impossible! My suggestion is that you can form a group for lecture reviewing via social network platforms as Facebook, Kakaotalk, etc. It is also a great idea to conduct a real-time group study on Zoom too. In this way, you can take advantage to discuss with your partners and encourage each other to get through this pandemic situation.
TIME MANAGEMENT WITHOUT STRESS
by Naeun Lee
If effective time management is supposed to help us live a more improved way of life, it is quite paradoxical that many people feel so much pressure trying to maintain productivity through time management. When I encounter these situations, I instinctively try to avoid this unwarranted burden by justifying that ‘I am not just that type of person’. Yet, I know deep down that systematic time management is universally more efficient. Hence, I want to suggest some ways that we all can manage our time more easily without the self imposed pressure.
There are certain expectations that follow the initially firm determination to time manage. One of them being the restoration of control over our lives. In the initial stages, the effects of this simple change in life is immense but as time passes, the effect increasingly becomes minimal, demotivating us from continuing with this new habit. Possibly questioning the method we have settled with, we go back and look for different apps and online crash courses that all seem to give such decisive and useful information about effective skills. Yet, based on my experience, the more I get unimpressed by each and every one of those avenues, the more I become disinterested.
An article titled “Why time management so often fails” published in BBC provides a possible causation behind this problem. It cites the human obsession with productivity that prevents time management skills from producing the best results. Just imagine, maybe, you cannot be any more productive. Of course, if you are continuously not able to complete a commonly adequate workload and pursue various time management skills, you are bound to be satisfied. On the other hand, an “unstated ideology to outperform yourself all the time”(Peñaedonda) is only going to make you frustrated and exhausted. This even goes against the fundamental purpose of time management as it does not aim to transform one into a human-machine but to enable them to allocate time into different areas. At the end of the day, time management tools should not be used as a scapegoat; you should not rely on this tool to somehow designate you tasks periodically so that you can maintain productivity like a person at an assembly line.
Hence, it is most important that we set ourselves to realistic standards. We often fall into the planning fallacy where we underestimate the time it takes for different stages to be accomplished as a whole by considering them singularly as individual steps. After settling this realistic workload, it is important that we personalize the time management tool. I have come to realize that most of the apps and websites designated for this task had been developed by IT specialists who targeted specific barriers they have found in their own life. While, this may seem relatively reliable, it is crucial that we objectively realize our personal deficiencies and take time to construct a system that is suitable for our lifestyle.
NOVEMBER 2020 ARTICLES
HOW TO STUDY SMARTER NOT HARDER
By Koo Yoona
Once in your life, you have probably heard someone say this to you: “Study smarter, not harder.” You’ve probably shaken your head at that remark because isn’t it obvious that we should be efficient with our studying methods? But how do you know if you’re actually studying smarter? Well, to help answer your questions, I have provided a few tips that can help you study better and smarter!
The first tip is to just start.
What? It’s that simple? Yes, it is. As I like to put it, the act of starting something means you’ve already done 50% of the work. Based on my personal experience, the toughest part of doing an assignment is finding the will to do it. I have realized that instead of putting the work off, again and again, just writing a couple words really helps increase your motivation and will to do the work. Most of the time, when writing an essay, it’s hard to start if you don’t have your thoughts perfectly structured. However, I feel like it’s important to take into consideration that when you’re first writing an essay, it is the first draft – a rough draft. It is fine if the draft is not perfect. Instead of thinking of ways to perfectly write your thoughts mentally in your head, just write it out. Instead of spending hours thinking of ways to write it perfectly, just write down your thoughts during that time. By doing so, you don’t forget any important thoughts you have, and you can always go back and revise once you’re done. Starting something might seem stressful and daunting but once you do it, everything will be easier.
The second tip is to start strong at the beginning of the semester.
I really recommend starting strong because as the semester goes on, the course load might suddenly increase. Things can get piled up and it’s going to be stressful if you feel like you can’t put your maximum effort. However, if you start strong and get good grades in the beginning, it is a bit more excusable if you don’t get as good of a grade afterwards since it will even out with the good grades. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t put effort into your work, but sometimes we have too much work assigned, and it gets a bit hard for us to balance it. Therefore, I highly recommend starting strong early on.
Last but definitely not least is to not forget to take a break!
Whether you like it or not, life is not all about studying. Put down your pen or laptop and take a breather. Go out, go walk, go to a café, go hang out with your friends, go walk your dogs, the list is endless. We might feel as if studying is a major part of our lives and it is. However, it is important to remember that we are humans and we need breaks. Although you might see these breaks as inefficient because it wastes time, it is better for you in the long run. Studying for a long period of time ceaselessly can be extremely draining both physically and mentally. Therefore, I strongly believe that we should put our own health first. It is never a bad idea to take a break once in a while.
Trying to work smarter than harder might be unusual for you in the beginning. However, if you start on implementing these tips into your daily life, you might be able to study better, which is better for the long run. It is also important to take into consideration that everyone studies differently. Therefore, instead of taking these tips to the T, incorporate some elements of it towards your existing routine.
TIME, STUDY
by Dahee Lee
We are already half-way through the second semester of the year at this moment, having finished all the midterm exams and assignments. After having been through three exam periods as a freshman, I became increasingly aware of the significance of time management needed for effective study. I felt that being in good hands of time management is really important, but at the same time a challenging task for students. In this article, I would like to share some of my experiences that helped me be more prompt, efficient and diligent. Firstly, I fixed my wake-up time every day from 9am to 10am. Before, I was stuck in this vicious cycle of waking up late and going to sleep late, which ruined my daily schedule and left me feeling helpless. I was in little control of my own time, and that was why I decided to wake up at a fixed time. This helped me go to sleep earlier and prevented wasting time on my phone when going to bed. Furthermore, I made use of a calendar. This may seem trivial, but the calendar was actually really helpful because I could keep track of all my upcoming assignments, assessments and plans. I tend to forget stuff easily, and this was a really productive way to keep myself reminded and conscious of my plans. Lastly, I stayed away from social media. It took time for me to realize how addictive and viral social media is. I realized I actually spend quite a lot of time looking at posts and videos with unnecessary content. I did not delete the account, but I cautiously reminded myself how wasteful it can be, which slowly helped me focus better on my work offline. These are the three experiences I really wanted to share with you for better time management. I hope you try them and can be more productive and time-efficient in your life as well!
5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KEEP IN MIND WHEN STUDYING
by Ja-Young Kim
Studying and focusing is hard. Especially being faced with all these infinite opportunities without any restraint or pressure as a university student makes you want to rest and put aside your studies. However, simply postponing your study hours doesn’t make them go away; rather, it makes you panic once you are faced with deadlines. Then, what might be some ways to effectively manage both the time to study and the time to rest? What might be some ways to avoid slacking off and rushing through your class notes at the last minute? Here are the five things I personally found most helpful to keep in mind when I sit down at my desk to study.
1. Rest after you’ve done what you have to do.
Often, I find friends taking a break before they finish the current work at hand. I myself sometimes do the same; before finishing off what I’ve been doing, I take a short break. The problem with this is that you get to take more rests than you normally would; you get to take two rests for one task (during and after the task) instead of one (after the task). Thus, before you rest in the midst of doing something, tell yourself that you can rest after finishing what you’re doing. Then, after you finish, reward yourself with a long break. This strategy is effective in managing your tasks and feels more accomplishing; you now don’t have to think back to the task that you were doing during breaks!
2. Sit and start studying when you think you have to.
This is the most challenging out of the numerous temptations which bother studying. Thinking that you will rest for just one more minute makes you rest hours, and eventually leads you to be faced with tons of unfinished work. To avoid this situation, sit down at your desk when studying pops in your mind. Just sitting down at your desk will motivate you to start studying. Therefore, get the habit of sitting down at your desk when you feel like you need to study.
3. Switch subjects when you feel tired.
This is a must during exam studying. The key to managing time efficiently during exam study periods is to extend your concentration period and focus on your studies without being distracted. Changing subjects is the best way to not slack off; once you feel like you need a rest, switch subjects. By switching subjects, another part of your brain gets activated and you don’t feel tired or worn out anymore. This will allow you to maintain your concentration for a long period of time and make you use time more efficiently!
4. Keep a consistent sleep and wake-up time.
This is a hard one for university students to realize; hanging out with friends late at night might mess up your daily routines. Yet, keeping a constant daily routine is important as the brain and body controls its use of energy according to the time you’re awake. Try to establish a regular sleeping and waking up pattern with some exceptions when needed. By establishing this daily routine, the body and brain will efficiently allocate the energy they use, allowing you to use the time you’re awake more effectively.
5. Rest at your best.
This might sound obvious, but when resting, simply rest and do not think of anything else. The purpose of resting is to relax your brain and give it some time to restore its energy. Additional thoughts or distractions will not make your brain rest at its best. Try and relax the best you can upon resting – this will make your brain recharge and provide you with better studying capacity once you start studying!
OCTOBER 2020 ARTICLES
MY TIPS ON STUDYING AND TIME MANAGEMENT
By Jooyoun Park
Have you ever wondered why you should study hard? I remember when I was in grade 10, I was so overwhelmed by my workload, so I started to question myself “Why is studying so important in my life?” It was a terrible day for me back then, however, looking back now I think it was a turning point in my life. Today, I would like to share my own study experience and let me share some tips for studying!
To briefly introduce myself, I am Korean but I spent most of my life in China due to my parents’ job. I graduated from a Chinese local primary school and later I moved to an international school for middle school and high school. So! Let me continue on with my story. After I started to question myself “Why is studying such an important thing” I could not focus on studying anymore because this thought dominated my mind. Of course, I knew that good grades will allow me to go to a better college and this will make me succeed, according to what adults say. Yet, I felt like this idea of “succeed in my life” made too little connection with the academic stress that I was getting. So, I took a pause to thoroughly think what I really want to achieve in the future. The first thing that popped up in my mind was becoming a teacher someday. So I started to narrow down the dream to what I can do right now to allow me to achieve my dream, and then I realized it was understanding the basic concepts thoroughly so that I can take any major that I want when I go to college. I suddenly started to feel passions and motivations in my heart.
This experience taught me that, realizing why you should study and having a sense of purpose is crucial in long-run studying. “Studying can make you succeed in the future.” is such a cliché and vague saying. Instead, you should take a step back and take some time to realize why you want to study. The tip that I would like to give you is that it is really helpful to make a habit of writing down your daily and weekly plans in the mornings. I use sticky notes and write down a list of tasks that I wish to complete every-day and I do my best to tick them off. It will definitely give you a strong sense of achievement! I wish you all the best!
THE ART OF TIME
By Ida Hovik
As we move on to university life, we become responsible for making the most out of the scarce resource which is our time. Without parents telling us what to do and when to do it, it is terribly easy to forget, or even procrastinate academics. Or perhaps you are one of the hard workers who have to balance both a job and academics. I for sure belong to the last category. This semester I work full time at Norway’s largest financial group while still attending my freshman classes online. At first, I believed that there are just not enough hours in a day and that balancing the two would prove impossible. However, since the semester started, I was practically forced by my circumstances to create an excellent structure for both work and school. In this article I will share some sweet tips and secrets for managing your time, all based on my own experiences.
First of all, I keep a strict sleep schedule in order to study as early as possible. Especially if I work night shifts, I will take advantage of the extra energy I have early in the day. By keeping a schedule where I go to bed between 10 and 11pm, I am able to wake up as early as 6am. This gives me much time to study early in the morning, and sometimes I can even relax an hour or two before heading to work. By doing the necessary schoolwork early in the morning, you will rid yourself of much stress, and the uncomfortable awareness of having work that is waiting to be done.
If changing your sleep schedule is too drastic, there are still other ways through which you can become just a bit more efficient. First and foremost, I would urge all of you to use a planner. By writing down your daily schedule, you will have a more specific idea of what your day looks like, which again might help any student who neglect their work due to procrastination and forgetfulness.
Furthermore, I keep a tight schedule and take advantage of the days when I do not work. After experiencing the intensity of office life, I have learned to appreciate time in a whole different way. The hours before work, the thirty minutes I spend eating breakfast, the hour I spend playing video games before bed. The scarcity makes every second of every minute of every hour feel so much more valuable. I urge you all to make effort to make yourselves aware of how you spend your time. Instead of studying for five hours and checking your phone every minute, turn it off. Have someone confiscate items that enables you to waste time, and you might finish your work in half the time.
You all might find it shocking that someone with such a tight schedule still has time for video games. However, my strategy is to maximize efficiency through recovery. By recovery, I mean that I set aside time for what I want to do: some “me-time”. That may be an hour or two where I play video games before bed, or perhaps even watching the recent episode of that TV drama I like. It can be anything, but make sure it is something not related to either school or work, so that it serves its purpose as mental recovery. By setting aside some time for myself at the end of the day, I have a way to not only recover, but also to thrive in the situation. So, remember that if you wish to succeed with a busy schedule, excellent planning and time management is absolutely essential.
JUNE 2020 ARTICLES
TIME MANAGEMENT- EWW!
by Jason Lebeck
Trust me, if there was someone who could give you quality advice on time management, it isn’t me-- you should look to people like Jim Kwik for that-- he seems really smart and can memorize over 100 names forwards and backwards in front of live audiences. That aside, I will share with you two unique strategies of mine that are underlooked but extremely useful for maximum productivity achievement and enhanced focusing capabilities. I promise you, if you try out these strategies in your own life, you will find the results to be better than you expected! Let’s dive in.
Strategy 1) Exercise
I know. You see this word and you immediately groan. “Exercise?,” you ask yourself rhetorically in your head. But hear me out: even when you are in the midst of finals and just want to focus on studying but are overwhelmed and pacing in your room, unable to get anything done-- exercising can be the answer to all your problems. You see, when we exercise, we are detoxicating our body of not only all the negative bodial stress that accumulates in our brain and heart-- you know, the stuff we need to live-- but we are also detoxicating our brain of all the stress we accumulated-- you know, the thing we need to focus. Even though the thought of exercising can be stressful, if you do your best to complete disengage from your stress and not think about your homework or tests while you exercise, then you will be able to focus on your work much easier as soon as you are finished. I recommend running over other forms of exercise to accomplish this peace, as other forms of exercise can be stressful themselves and may not be best suited to distracting one from their work so they can focus easier when returning to it.
Strategy 2) Sleep! Just do it!
Look, pulling an all-nighter is a bad idea and you know it. Not only has it been scientifically proven that pulling an all-nighter is bad for your health, but it also lessens the overall quality of your final product and will leave you exhausted for the next day or two. This is a problem for multiple reasons; namely, the fact that you are staying up on little energy to try to finish something that will take a lot of energy, which will only make you tired for the next day, which diminishes your performance in all your classes. As such, I recommend that you avoid this situation by simply sleeping. Yes, it may seem counterintuitive, but if you chose to sleep rather than stay up, you will wake up with more energy than you would have had while studying all night, which will allow you to be more productive the next day. I highly recommend that rather than doing an all-nighter, take an L to take a dub the next morning and have more energy to study.
HOW TO STUDY BETTER AND MORE EFFICIENTLY
by Dail Jung
As we are all busy people living busy lives, it is important to make sure we are making the most out of every given moment. As students, studying is always a responsibility and a priority to consider. Managing your time around studying may be difficult at times, so here are a few time managements tips and strategies for you to try out!
Creating a Schedule
The first strategy is to create a rigid schedule that dictates what you will be doing for a given day. The advantages of a rigid schedule are that you do not have to consider what you will do throughout the day as your only job is to follow the schedule you set for yourself the other day. The schedule is also bound to be more planned out than simply going about the day while doing whatever you feel like. The difficulty comes with understanding when you should sacrifice your structure for a spontaneous event.
Creating a Three-Task List
This strategy involves you writing three tasks you believe you must accomplish the following day. The next day, you can work around any schedule as long as you achieve the three tasks you stipulated. The benefits of this strategy are that you are free to work around any events around you that day while only being accountable to three events. The downside is that you might overwhelm yourself on some days with bigger tasks, or discredit the three-task list with some smaller tasks All in all, it is a simple, time-efficient way of planning out the following day.
Trying Different Note-Taking Methods
Note-taking is an important aspect of active memorization while writing and organizing the notes, and an equally important part of active recalling once you revisit the notes. There are many formats and styles of notetaking that should be utilized based on your learning preferences! There is the Cornell note-taking system that has been picking up steam recently: the system is has a few sections responsible for different aspects of active memorization and active recall. There are plenty of other note-taking methods available online, so take a look and you might find something that suits your ways of studying!
These are just a few tips and strategies you can utilize to make the most out of your efficient studying, and hence time management. Make sure you are staying balanced and conscientious as burning out is definitely an issue students struggle with! We wish you the very best of luck!
MAY 2020 ARTICLES
MY TIPS FOR TIME MANAGEMENT AND STUDYING
by Jihye Nam
Are you good at managing your time? For me, the answer is ‘No’. I personally had lots of problems in time management when I was in high school. Even after I entered UIC, the first few weeks had been a difficult period since balancing the time between studying and resting was harder than I thought. Through a few attempts in trying new methods for time management, however, I could finally discover a method that’s perfect for me. I want to first introduce few ways of time management that you can try, all of which I tried myself as well.
1. Utilize the mini ‘Timer’
- Using timer when studying was extremely popular within my friends when I was in high school. I graduated a foreign language high school in Korea, and because the competition was relatively harsher than common schools, my more than 90% of students used timer to effectively manage their time and concentrate in studying. The biggest benefit of utilizing mini timer can be 1) no big expense required(mini timer costs average 7000\~15000\), 2) helps you discover the unnecessarily wasted time during your day, 3) shorten the time you spend in assignments and studies. By using timer, you can take a grasp in how you use your time normally. However, some of you might have difficulty in measuring time constantly; in my case, I couldn’t help but keep forgetting to pause the timer during lunch time or whenever I went to the bathroom.
2. Use special ‘Apps’ for time management
Do you know that there’s an app where you can control your time by growing trees? It’s an app called “Forest” – you can set up a time you’ll spend on studying, and as the timer starts, the screen of your phone would show a tree sprouting or a flower blossoming. The effect of this app is to prevent the users from keep playing with their phone while studying. It’s actually very effective than other common time management apps, since the growth of a tree makes you feel more sense of accomplishment and productivity. I used it a few times and it was a special experience to see a tree grow if I don’t use my phone for a certain amount of time. One sad news for us is that this app isn’t free anymore; it costs 2500\ to use the app.
3. ‘Online’ Cagong
This method is the most effective one for me so far. Have you heard of the word “Cagong”? It’s a short version of a Korean word for ‘카페에서 공부하기(studying at café)’. Cagong usually means studying at café with your friends. However, COVID-19 made it difficult for us to move around freely or stay at a public space for a long time. ‘Online’ Cagong is what I do for its alternative. I get myself a delicious drink and snacks to eat, then invite my friends through a face-talk in Kakaotalk or a Zoom meeting. If we’re all set to start studying, we can do whatever each person wants to do: 1) study or do assignments, 2) turn off the audio and participate in a live class meeting, 3) have a short talk whenever we get bored or feel stressed out by workloads. The advantage of online Cagong is that there’s no time/space limit and you can be as comfortable as you want. For me, online Cagong helped increase the quality of my quarantine life and shortened the amount of time I spend in watching random Youtube videos, which led to effective studying so far.
There are various methods for controlling time and please keep in mind that not the popular ones on the Internet are the only answer for you; your key to time management might not be found online, or sometimes mixing the methods could work better. I hope you can find a way that works for you the best and fully enjoy your days!
A NEW METHOD OF STUDYING
by Felicia Budiman
We have been doing it wrong: highlighting, making notes, re-reading, etc. The techniques we have been using to study are in fact, ‘low utility,’ or in other words, less effective for memorization and study; these techniques only target the short term memory-scape instead of the desired long term. Thus, it is important to discover the ‘higher utility’ study techniques that will make our study more efficient and productive.
One method recommended by Brown-Roediger III-Daniel’s ‘Make it Stick’ is Spaced Practice, a technique that ‘gives your brain the time it needs to strengthen new knowledge and store it in your long-term memory through a process called consolidation.’ The effectiveness of this technique can be explained by the phenomena of the ‘Forgetting Curve,’ the century-old idea that over time, we ‘forget things at an exponential rate.’
Spaced repetition, however, disturbs the curve as you review material at spaced intervals and thus, allows you to retain information that would have been lost. As seen from the graph above, by the fourth reminder, the chance of remembering has climbed up higher and higher.
While we are intrigued by the scientific facts, a question to be answered is, how shall we practice this ‘spaced repetition?’
One method, suggested by scholar Ali Abdaal is to create a spreadsheet in which you list all the topics from that subject. In essence, every time you study a topic and, critically, actively recall information from that topic, you write the current date in the column along in the spreadsheet.
However, active recalling does not simply account for reading from a textbook; answering questions without looking for guidance, doing flashcards, completing outlines for memorized essays and etc. constitute of this activity.
Ali also recommends coloring the boxes in a spectrum from red to green depending on mastery. With this technique, your study sessions can be more customizable and even more productive as you can focus on the areas which require your attention.
