<p>You are welcome for the cal newport blog recommendation - he makes a lot of sense! </p>
<p>I am a parent, and have now taught my middle schooler (as well as my college student years ago) the technique I honed in college and grad school. It seems incredibly silly - until you see people like Cal Newport recommending similar methods. I was a 3.0 student in high school, a 3.3 student in college, and a close to 4.0 in college,primarily due to this technique (and also because the material got harder but also more interesting.)</p>
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<li> Write down your time schedule for the day. Yes, you could do it electronically. Block out class time and commitments. now MINDFULLY consider when the best “fun time” of the day is. For me, in college, it was after 8:30PM. Block out that time. Now make a specific schedule for the rest of the day. Draw a T on the paper, with your list of scheduled events on one side. On the other side, as you go through teh day, write down what you actually accomplished. For example, if you finish the 5 pages of anatomy early, write that down, and take some extra break time (I usually took a walk around the library stacks or headed down to the vending machines just to get some exercise). If you are slow, write that down too - it will help you gauge tomorrow. I know it sounds lame, but I always put stars next to every time block where I did what I said. Even big kids and adults need encouragement Here’s an example
8 - 9 Class
9 - 9:30 Anatomy page 10 - 15.
9:30 - 9:35: Break
9:35 - 10 Anatomy page 16 - 19 (Anatomy readings were grueling)
10 - 10:15: Break
10:15 - 11:15: Language Disorders: Review and Highlight Notes for Test
11:15 -11:45: Reread highlighted areas of Chapter 1 - 3/LD. ?s (if I came up with question/areas I didn’t understand, I make a quick list).
12-1: Lunch w Friends
1 - 3 LD class - ask ?s from notes and text for test on Thursday.
3 - 3:30: Bookstore/Coffee
3:30 - 5:30 Work
5:30 - 6: Return to dorm. Load up on materials for evening studying.
6 - 6:30 Dinner in commons - walk STRAIGHT to quietest part of library - idea is to not socialize. Do NOT go back to dorm - easy way to kill an hour or two!
6:30 - 7:30: Read for Easier Course
7:30 - 8:30: Write outline for term paper to do tomorrow - list resources.<br>
8:30: STOP and go back to the dorm and RELAX!! You will find many people have not even started, but you have done four hours even with 2 hours work study! What I found is that daytime and early evening studying was much more effective, and the time spent usually cleared my evenings. In crunch times, I had the evening to “double up” but typically didn’t have to do that on most nights. The other key is to leave distractions like social networking, internet surfing, etc inaccessible until your study breaks. It is only an hour - not a big deal!</li>
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