Study

Make Time for Time: 1. Introduction

Starting today, over six posts, I’m dedicating my time to…Time!

We all manage time differently. And while one person gets up at the crack of dawn to get their work done, another person works at night in a productive buzz until the early hours of the morning.

photo by Leo Reynolds

Yes, we work better at different times of the day:

Morning – The Lark is most productive in the morning;
Noon – Middle of the day, you’re buzzing with ideas;
Night – As the sun sets, the mind awakes;
Any time – Both a boon and a pain. A few lucky people seem to find work easy whatever the hour. But beware, as a productivity lull can hit at any point. It’ll come back soon, but what if the work is urgent?

We have different ways of managing time. Three ways crop up quite often:

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Whatever comes my way – Impulsive
This isn’t a good way of managing time. If you don’t make plans, anything can bite you on the bum and mess up a happy existence. It’s fun to take up all sorts of offers at short notice and you may thrive on the excitement of not knowing what’s around the corner. But is it worth the hassle in the long run? You’ll realise it’s not worth it when things go wrong. Don’t wait until that time. It’s not pretty. It’s been known to cause otherwise joyful individuals to crumble.

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Embrace the future – Planner
Some people are the opposite of impulsive. They take planning to a whole new level. Everything has to be worked out in advance so there are no surprises. Down to the last second, it’s all expected, all arranged. Nothing is agreed until the full details are known. The last thing a planner wants is an unexpected surprise. But the more obsessive the planning becomes, the more surprises you’re bound to encounter. So hardcore planning can be just as damaging as acting solely on impulse.

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Work from past experience – Cautious
Hindsight is a great thing. Shame we don’t find out until it’s too late. As you live your life, your experiences make you the person you are. A cautious personality will occasionally be impulsive, but generally prefers to keep that to a minimum. The majority of the time they will have an idea of what’s ahead, trying not to be too restrictive or anal about the process. A cautious person can become too cautious, turning them into more of a planner (or someone who won’t commit to anything through fear). But a healthy dose of caution itself is nothing to worry about.

Impulsive and Planner elements can live together, because certain aspects of your life are prone to more planning and others happen off the cuff.

Anything is possible with time. At times of panic, we even imagine time slowing down. Clearly, it’s important to maintain a healthy relationship with it!

So this post sets the scene. I have another five posts over the coming fortnight. They’ll focus on:

If you don’t want to miss these posts, click here to subscribe to TheUniversityBlog in a reader, if you don’t already. You can also clickety-click to follow me on Twitter and I’ll put out links each time I post to the site.

You’ve got the time to do that, haven’t you? 🙂

Why even your independence goes through a dependent phase

I believe everything I read and I regularly fall to peer pressure. Just like you do. Just like everyone does.

photo by fotologic

The most independent free spirits among us may seem a law unto themselves, but they may just be better at working beyond an acceptance of what other people tell them.

If that sounds far-fetched, check out this fascinating piece on PsyBlog about it. Whether it’s group work, a lecture, a textbook, or just some random late-night conversation, our natural instinct is to do a couple of things:

Believe what’s being communicated to us;
Follow the actions of our peers.

That’s why young children often believe everything they hear and why they want to copy other people (their parents, their friends, a stranger…). It’s pretty natural.

Now, you may think this is beyond you. You may think peer pressure is for other people and that you disagree with more than enough things to believe everything. But apparently you’re just better at overcoming the instincts.

I bet it can go the other way too. There are probably subjects, beliefs or people that automatically trigger an alarm in your head that turn you so cynical that you won’t believe anything that’s put to you. It may be more of a learned process, but it works on a similar level.

In academia, it’s important to overcome the instincts and come to your own conclusions. You don’t need to find a unique opinion (it’s okay to agree with someone else), but you do need to understand why you think a certain way. An independent view is a massive step toward critical thinking, which is so crucial to effective study in your degree.

photo by fotologic

Make your work rock and get your creative juices flowing!

Whether you’ve got a few days or a few months to hand something in, there’s always enough time to get creative and produce quality work.

photo by h.koppdelaney

But it’s often so difficult to shine? Life gets in the way, there’s so much other stuff to distract you, simply starting a project is a pain, the little perfectionist in you has niggling doubts, etc., etc.

Let’s check out some of the ways you can shove those distractions and problems out of the way:

Focus on the work in hand – It’s a willpower thing (or Inner Slacker thing). There’s so much going on around you that it’s insanely difficult to ignore it. But when you clear nearby distractions, get others out of the way, and isolate yourself from interruption and noise, it doesn’t take long before the work gets a lot easier to deal with. Honest! 🙂
Remember that the hardest part is the start – When it feels like hell even starting the work, you then wonder how horrible it’s going to be when you actually get on with it. Rest assured, once you have the courage to get on with it, everything else comes naturally. The first hurdle is the biggest one. The rest of the way isn’t so bad.
Move on when you’re stuck – You’re bound to face difficulties in your study. There are times when something doesn’t sound right, or you struggle to find a way of backing up a point. Don’t let it hold you up! When you face a block, make a note of it and come back to it later. Much better to get everything else out of the way and work on the annoyances later. You’ll be more focused on those aspects in isolation anyway.
Don’t let your Internal Editor get in the way – Another thing that holds us up is our wish to get it right FIRST TIME. It’s like our brain hasn’t heard of ‘rough drafts’! The editing process should come later, after you’ve got everything else out in the open. The longer you agonise over a word or the structure of the coursework, the further away you get from getting the work done. Edit later. Piece everything together later. Your Internal Editor can wait!
Don’t do it all in one session – Students who leave an essay to the last minute end up having to do everything in one go. It’s one of the worst ways of working, but last-minute essay writing is common. Start as soon as possible on your coursework and complete it over time. Short sessions are less daunting and help you target specific areas of your work each time. If you genuinely work better in much longer sessions, remember to take regular breaks from the study. And do the work as soon as you can…don’t leave it until the day before, when it’s stressful and when you’re in danger of running out of time.
Mix it up! – Nobody else can tell you how to put your work together. Do you like to write the Conclusion first? If so, do it first! Does the Introduction come naturally to you when it’s the last part of the creative process? Is so, do it last! Work to the order that works best for you.
If in doubt, get help – Don’t feel bad when you don’t understand what’s required. If a question doesn’t make sense or if you can’t get your head around a concept, your tutors should be happy to help. Make sure you know what you want to ask and what help you’re looking for and, armed with this information, ask away.
Your answer is not ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ – Move away from thinking about the ‘right’ answer. What you’re trying to do is support an argument, explain a function, analyse a concept, and so on. Critical thinking is not black or white. It’s all about the shades of grey.
Stop fearing the worst – The work you do is private at first. Nobody is looking over your shoulder. Well, they shouldn’t be anyway. So it doesn’t matter what you write down and it doesn’t need to be perfect. There’s no need to panic about it; just get all your thoughts and quotes and ideas and workings and illustrations out in the open. Even if loads of the output is rubbish, you’ll have all the good stuff sorted too. Take the good stuff and shape it into something big. You don’t have to tell anyone else about the other rubbish you put out. That’s your own little secret. It’s the quality stuff that makes you the hero…

These are just some ideas to get the creative juices flowing. What do YOU do to get those ideas from your head to the page?

photo by SashaW

Believe in yourself

Facebook doesn’t equal worse grades. It doesn’t equal better grades either, for that matter. Facebook is a tool that you can make use of in any way you please.

It’s the way you choose to interact with a tool that helps shape your future.

You’ll have noticed that I have spent some time away from TheUniversityBlog and my Twitter account (and other online services). I could have worried about the decision and seen it in negative terms after having read about the dangers of getting off the Web2.0 rollercoaster. I could have panicked about losing subscribers and followers, creating mountains out of molehills.

But I listened to myself, took responsibility for my actions, and made a decision that was best for me (selfish, but hopefully for the best). While I missed working on the blog and keeping in touch with everyone online, I knew that I would be coming back both happy to communicate with you on all aspects HE and ready to re-engage with the tools that make it happen. Thanks for sticking with me!

I wanted to write today simply to mention that you needn’t worry what others suggest when it comes to your own life. You may have heard in the news about a study looking at Facebook usage and exam grades. A lot of reports mentioned a clear link between heavy Facebook use and lower grades. However, the academic study didn’t set it out that way. Turns out that Facebook usage doesn’t suddenly screw your life up and result in lower grades. Unless, of course, you choose that destination…

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