podcast

How a Strike on the London Underground Could Help You Sleep Better – TUB-Thump 016

How could a strike on the London Underground help you get a better night of sleep?

In Tim Harford’s new book, Messy: How to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy-Minded World, he talks about an Underground strike in 2014. I remember being in London during the strike. I just walked to and from my destination instead.

But I saw lots of people checking maps and crowding around steps in the hope of finding an open station. Some people were more prepared than others, but you could see this wasn’t quite business as usual.

Harford explains that three economists looked at commuting data during the strike and found that many people had to use a different route to their typical journey.

So far, so obvious:

“But what was surprising is that when the strike was over, not everybody returned to their habitual commuting route. One in twenty of the commuters who had switched then stayed with the route that they had used during the strike; presumably, they had discovered that it was faster or cheaper or preferable in some other way to their old routine…[They needed] an unexpected shock to force them to seek out something better.”

What has this got to do with sleep?

Harford says that mixing up routine with surprise is a good method of discovering new solutions and improvements to your current setup.

As we saw in this week’s main post on TheUniversityBlog, student sleep isn’t best known for its routine. You rarely have to be up at the same time every morning, and it’s not unusual to have some crazy-late nights thrown in.

In which case, let’s turn around the London Underground study.

You’re living with all this randomness in your sleep. Maybe it’s time to inject a bit of routine to that random.

When you know what makes you tick, you’re more equipped to let surprises into your routine without suffering so much.

Here are a few ideas to get you on your way:

Wake yourself up on a non-lecture morning as if you DO have a lecture. Focus on how it feels to get up. What are the most difficult parts of getting up for you? How can you deal with these issues so they don’t cause so much of a bottleneck?
Commit to going to bed at the same time every night for a week. Do you notice any patterns to be aware of in your less structured weeks?
Commit to waking up at the same time every day for a week. Is this easier or more difficult than going to bed at the same time? Can you work out how many hours of sleep work for you?
Commit to one more week of getting a set number of hours sleep that you think works for you. Is it eight hours? Six hours? What is the optimum number of hours you need to feel refreshed every time you get out of bed?
Go to bed much earlier than you normally would. How easy is it to get to sleep? Do you sleep all night? Do you wake up on your own, or still need an alarm? Ask questions like this. If you’re sleeping the whole time, it could be a sign that you need more sleep than you realise. If you find it harder to get to sleep than usual, maybe you do better at night than in the mornings. If you sleep as long as usual and wake up early in the morning without an alarm, maybe you’re getting the right amount of sleep. Make sure you get about that much sleep every night, whatever time you do it!

Think of other ways of changing up. You may not want to adopt a routine, but testing out possible routines could help you understand your needs much better, even in the face of randomness.

The big takeaway from the Underground strike is that it’s no good having too much routine and no good having too much randomness. Whichever way you sway, try mixing things up a bit occasionally. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Music for TUB-Thump is Life, by Tobu, which is released under a Creative Commons license. Check out more of Tobu’s great sounds on Soundcloud, YouTube, and his official site.

TUB-Thump is part of the Learning Always Network.

Keep being awesome!

How To Be the Student You Deserve To Be – TUB-Thump 015

We don’t operate on a level playing field.

Some things are up to you, while other things are outside your control.

On today’s TUB-Thump, I look at adopting the mindset to be the student you deserve to be.

University is about so many things. I like to think of it as a springboard to taking action.

That doesn’t make life at university easy. So how do you act in the most effective way?

If you want to do more than jump through a few hoops, listen to today’s TUB-Thump, get exploring, and reclaim the word “learning”. It’s a gateway to keep being awesome…

Here are the show notes for the 9-min episode:

01:00 – To be the student you deserve to be, it’s about thinking how you can use everything as a springboard to further action.
02:20 – The easier it is, and the more opportunities there are, the more likely you could end up procrastinating. It’s a strange situation, so keep a careful eye on it.
02:50 – Not everything is laid out for you. And even if they are, that doesn’t mean you should blindly jump through the hoops without any real understanding or context as to why you’re doing it. I did some of this “hoop jumping” without question when I was younger. And since I didn’t know why I was doing it, I ended up making decisions that didn’t make sense. I had to pivot further down the line.
03:50 – Not everyone gets the opportunities to correct their course or find their context. That’s part of the reason why I want to help open things up through TheUniversityBlog, TUB-Thump and so on. If one person can be inspired or can find context, that’s a worthwhile achievement.
05:30 – It’s never too late to explore more. We’re always learning.
06:10 – Reclaim the word “learning”. And check out another one of my shows, Learning Always.
07:25 – Allow yourself flexibility, so long as you don’t blame others. Take on responsibility where it counts and where you do have control over it.

Music for TUB-Thump is Life, by Tobu, which is released under a Creative Commons license. Check out more of Tobu’s great sounds on Soundcloud, YouTube, and his official site.

TUB-Thump is part of the Learning Always Network.

Keep being awesome!

How to Confidently Refer to Other Texts in Your Writing – TUB-Thump 014

Talking about other people, concepts, and theories in your coursework doesn’t need to be difficult. But it does need getting your head around.

That’s why Episode 014 of TUB-Thump is a quick-fire round of advice on how to confidently refer to others as you write. And you’ll get my take on what it really means to be original in your writing.

I’ve even got a bell to identify each of the points as I whizz along. What’s not to like?

That said, I was clearly too near the mic in today’s edition of the show, and I said “put” far too many times…a lethal combination! Bonus game: count how many times I annoy the mic by making a P sound.

Here are the show notes for the 7-min episode:

00:50 – Originality in your writing isn’t about creating brand new theories and ideas. It’s generally about bringing your voice to what’s already out there and casting your own mark on it. That means referring to other people, other theories, and other works.
01:10 – Explain in your own words.
01:50 – Get the meaning/explanation right when putting it in your own words.
02:10 – Use a direct quotation when making a powerful point or their specific words matter.
03:00 – Don’t spend too long describing in your own words. Distil it so you make the point, then get on with your own point.
03:40 – Refer to a range of texts. Don’t focus too much on a limited number of sources.
04:15 – Let your voice shine through.
04:40 – Make all your references abundantly clear. The most annoying thing is accidental plagiarism (useful video from the University of Reading below).

http://www.screencast.com/t/cGOqGCglPF

Music for TUB-Thump is Life, by Tobu, which is released under a Creative Commons license. Check out more of Tobu’s great sounds on Soundcloud, YouTube, and his official site.

TUB-Thump is part of the Learning Always Network.

Keep being awesome!

Understand Essay Titles Better With 3 Quick Questions – TUB-Thump 013

“You haven’t answered the question.”

Has a tutor ever said this to you?

Hopefully they went into more detail than that. But what is really behind the advice to make sure you actually answer the question that’s been set?

In Episode 013 of TUB-Thump, I’ve got a brief method of working out what a question means. It’s a quick process, and you should get used to it over time.

Essay questions have keywords and details. It’s easy to pick up on the keywords.

Your exercise is to deal with the details too. Stuff like reference and structure. Points that are easy to gloss over when you spot a keyword and think you know loads about that particular area.

It feels good when that light-bulb goes off in your head and you can think of loads of great points to make before you’ve even started writing.

But then…the assignments aren’t:

“Wordsworth…Wax lyrical about all you know.”
“The history of food…How much can you regurgitate?”
“Human geography…What facts can you uncover?”

Today’s episode looks at the three quick considerations that will get you looking at essay questions in more detail.

Here are the show notes for the 7-min episode:

01:15 – What is the essay question actually asking you to do? Assess, discuss, describe, list, analysis, was X right or wrong…find the top-level reason for the question that’s being asked.
02:00 – What is the question referring to specifically? Find the context and the relevant reference points.
03:00 – What clues can you find from the question’s structure? Has the question been written as a challenge to a popular opinion? Is it asking you to look at several different angles rather than give a single perspective? You can often find clues within the questions to help you in writing a great answer.
04:15 – If the question feels misleading after you’ve asked these follow-up questions, ask for clarification. And see if you can describe the question’s meaning in your own words.
05:10 – Summing up the main points from the episode. Your questions should only take you a few minutes to unpack. And they can help you get started quickly once you get used to the process.

Music for TUB-Thump is Life, by Tobu, which is released under a Creative Commons license. Check out more of Tobu’s great sounds on Soundcloud, YouTube, and his official site.

TUB-Thump is part of the Learning Always Network.

Keep being awesome!