EduLinks – Software, Psychology & loads of videos

It’s that time again. Enjoy the linkage!

Flash cards are great for learning specifics, such as words, brief concepts, equations, and so on. If you want to break free from physical flash cards, here are two electronic variants. Memorize Now is an online flash card service, while Pauker is downloadable for when you don’t want to rely on Internet connections.

Datamation – 65 Open Source Downloads That Could Change Your Life

A great set of free, open source tools with all manner of uses. Software to suit all. Well worth bookmarking.

Staring (Emory University)

A video that looks at our relationship with staring; being stared at and staring at others. A short piece that’s interesting enough to keep you looking.

Study Hacks – Beyond Passion: The Science of Loving What You Do

Below is just a small section of a great post. I encourage you to read the whole piece:

Research reveals that autonomy, competence, and relatedness are the key to loving what you do. So how do you get them? There are different answers to this question, but the strategy that I keep emphasizing on Study Hacks has two clear steps:

Master a skill that is rare and valuable.

Cash in the career capital this generates for the right rewards.

The world doesn’t owe you happiness. Your boss has no reason to let you choose your own projects, or spend one week out of every four writing a novel at your beach house. These rewards are valuable. To earn them, you must accumulate your own career capital by mastering a skill that’s equally rare and valuable.

It’s important, however, that you cash in this capital, once accumulated, for the right rewards. The word “right,” in this context, is defined by the traits of SDT. In other words, once you have something valuable to offer, use it to gain as much autonomy, competence, and relatedness as you can possibly cram into your life.

Freestyle Mind – How to deal with Criticism in Writing

A huge post that’ll help you tackle your coursework feedback head-on. No longer will you fear the feedback and ignore your not-so-successful attempts at writing essays. The problem pieces may be the most useful items of work you write!

New Scientist – When your brain gets the joke

Are you having a laugh? Humour turns out to be both complex and essential.

From Scientific American – Mixed Impressions: How We Judge Others on Multiple Levels

“All over the world, it turns out, people judge others on two main qualities: warmth (whether they are friendly and well intentioned) and competence (whether they have the ability to deliver on those intentions)”

PsyBlog – 10 Social Psychology Studies: Why Smart People Do Dumb or Irrational Things

Why rewards aren’t automatically a good thing, why we tend not to share vital information, how body language really does help, how situation trumps personality in determining behaviour, and many other wonderful insights into the mind.

MakeUseOf – Top 12 Sites To Watch Videos That Are Better Than YouTube

The title says it all. We’re used to firing up YouTube for a video fix, whether it’s for a laugh or in order to learn. But there are many video sites offering even more content. Okay, so it’s yet more linkage to procrastinate to…perhaps I should have kept this to myself, eh? Nah!

Jane’s Learning Pick – 25 places to find instructional videos

Even more places to find videos. This time, with an instructional angle. Some overlap to the previous link, but another worthy resource.

TVGorge.com

My final video link, honest! How about a site that lets you stream US shows to other countries? I’m guessing the legitimacy of the site is questionable, given that shows on US streaming sites won’t stream outside the US for a reason. Yet here we are with all shows available to stream…Still, while the site’s up, it’ll help you catch up on episodes of your favourite shows.

Zen Habits – 12 Classic Zen Habits Posts You Might Not Have Read

Now you’ve watched billions of videos and marvelled at all that psychological wonder, I’ll leave you to pursue a journey toward peace, calm, less stress, and a steady flow of gentle relaxation. Sound good?

Order Plus Focus Equals WIN!

When you see the list of things to do getting longer and out of control, take action.

Here’s a quick way to get back on track:

Order in importance and focus on just a few tasks each day. Anything else is a bonus.

I’m sure you don’t have 20 tasks that all need finishing TODAY, even if that’s how it feels sometimes. Let’s say time truly is tight and you have a week to get 20 important things complete. That’s less than three things you need to do each day that week. Even if you relax at weekends, you’d only have four tasks to do each weekday before completing all 20.

I’m sure the jobs will take different lengths of time, but this doesn’t when your list is out of control. Every job will seem to take up too much of your valuable time. In the circumstances, you need to claw things back and be the master of it once more.

Do this:

List all the stuff you need to do.
Make sure you really NEED to do it. Anything not important or urgent, take off the list.
Arrange items in order of importance. But,
Anything that requires urgent attention over the next day should come first. And,
Shorter tasks that are inconvenient to complete, but won’t take long, can be dealt with as soon as possible too. That’ll take them off the list and give you a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Everything else follows on the list, still in order of importance.

If you won’t feel any more warm and fuzzy just by removing the shorter tasks off the list quickly, it may be best to skip that step. Just order in importance and don’t focus on anything else until you’re out of danger and able to relax once more.

This is a quick and dirty method that still requires a push on your own part, but it helps get the job done. With a tight focus, you shouldn’t feel so overwhelmed, especially when you get closer to clearing the list of tasks.

I wouldn’t recommend this as a regular way to deal with your time! The exercise is simply to get you over a panic.

May you never need to use such a method. 😉

Have fun taking life seriously

“A joke is a very serious thing.” – Winston Churchill

“Serious sport is war minus the shooting.” – George Orwell

My last post gave 20 reasons why you should take university seriously. But what does it mean to be ‘serious’?

The easiest way to put it is this: If something is significant to you, even a teeny-weeny little bit, it’s serious. End of story.

The laughs, the fun, the food and drink, the friendships…it’s all serious. Geddit?

photo by House Photography

Don’t get me wrong, your outward character can be as eccentric and as crazily happy as you want. It’s the way you drive your character that needs to be taken seriously.

Enjoyment suffers if you take flight every which way without giving your actions proper thought. A more determined and less casual approach will help you shine. Practice this approach regularly and the mindset will begin to come naturally.

Giving due attention to every aspect of your life is not strictly about success. It’s about attempting to take control and allow you to make your own decisions.

“You can’t control life. It doesn’t wind up perfectly. Only…only art you can control. Art and masturbation. Two areas in which I am an absolute expert.” – Woody Allen, in the film Stardust Memories

Okay, life is so chaotic that random events regularly push us off course. Chance dictates huge amounts of our time, even if we don’t spend our day to day lives considering the abundance of chance in every last thing we do.

Funnily enough, as I was about to post this piece up, the electricity went out. That random event changed my day. It wasn’t scheduled and there was nothing I could have done about it.

I was unable to get on with my scheduled work. I’d been writing blog posts at the computer (including this one). I could have given up and just waited for the electricity to come back…but it took two hours to return! I needed to either find a way to continue as planned, or change my plans in order to accommodate the new circumstances. I chose the former, picking up a pen and pad to write blog posts in a different way.

As soon as unavoidable change comes your way, that’s what you’ve got to decide:

Find a new way to keep working as planned;
Alter your scheduled plan so as not to waste time.

As soon as you shrug your shoulders and stop taking the situation seriously, you suffer as a consequence. Ignore the situation completely and chance doesn’t even come into play; you’ve let go before taking any chances.

I’ve done this in the past and I’m sure I’ll do it again. It can’t be avoided completely, because it’s another way the dreaded ‘comfort zone’ lulls us into a false sense of security.

But you can train yourself to be more attentive. It’s not difficult to recognise the ‘switch-off’ moments. You just have to deal with it as soon as possible.

When you find yourself going off the boil, or you begin to ignore the importance of every second of your life, don’t let yourself off. Take the matter into your own hands (i.e. seriously) before you lose even the chance to be where you want to be.

And with that, have yourselves a fun weekend!

Get serious about university

I’m in the process of putting together a new 20-part series of posts over 20 days, which are all lists of 20. As a taster, I want to give you 20 reasons why you need to take the student experience seriously every single day.

I had wasted days at uni. These weren’t just relaxation days (which are necessary), they were a complete waste of time when nothing worthwhile was done at all.

Luckily, I didn’t waste many days. But I still look back and shudder at what I could’ve done with those precious hours I did waste. I can’t get that time back.

photo by billaday

20 reasons to get serious about uni: from Fresher to finished

Because, quite simply, every second counts.
The first year does matter to grades – If your first year grades don’t count toward your final degree award, many students take it easy. Who cares? But you should care, because a serious effort from the outset means you’re likely to have much better grades when the marks do count.
Fun is serious (when done right).
Serious is fun (when done right).
Your future is better managed in advance… – Don’t wait for life to bite you on the bum. Half the fun is chasing life for the goodies!
Each year is different – With each new academic year comes a new set of possibilities. You’ve moved on, the learning structure moves on, and priorities change. Taking each year as a different stage in your experience helps ground you and make the most of your time.
Each term/semester is different – Another time of change, whether it’s modules or activities. The start of every new term is time to take stock and appreciate how you want/need to move on.
You can start planning your career right now – The sooner you take this seriously, the more time you have to show off your potential and talent.
You can actually start your career right now! – Why not go the whole hog and start a company or reach out to businesses and make your degree a deeply vocational dream?
Don’t have a career planned? Even if you’re studying mainly for the learning, like I was, you should still consider your future plans and dreams.
‘Careless’ is different to ‘Fun’ – You can go absolutely crazy having fun. It’s when you stop thinking about your actions that you’re liable to do something careless.
A careless past can come back to haunt you – Still don’t think it’s worth taking fun seriously? One day you’ll wish you did.
The later you take life seriously, the more opportunities you’ll miss.
This is a unique stage of life. Cherish it.
Blink and you’ve missed it. I’m warning you.
The quicker you focus on the student life, the quicker you’ll settle. That goes for everything, not just study.
You’ll have more time to think of a great postgraduate route. You may never need leave uni again. 😉
You don’t want to give anyone the excuse not to take you seriously.
A lot of issues that you’ll encounter again and again in life can be experienced at a more relaxed pace, or in a less demanding way at uni.
It’s costing you money to study. A wasted day is wasted money.

TheUniversityBlog

Life shouldn't stop when you study. Be the student you deserve to be.