<p>-KNOW your typing speed. KNOW how quickly you can BS something up.</p>
<p>If you need to write a 1,000 page paper, realize that if you're typing at an average of 60 WPM, you need 16 2/3 minutes to type that all up (it is realistic, given the breaks that people need when they write something insightful).</p>
<ul>
<li><p>KNOW the teacher's predisposition to taking in people's excuses late</p></li>
<li><p>KNOW how long "staying in the bathroom for a bit too long" means. Arriving in class 5 minutes late can mean the difference between life and death. </p></li>
<li><p>KNOW how lenient some substitute teachers are. I once got an essay grade of 97% in english even though i didn't start on it until the MORNING it was due - and my class is like at 7:55 AM. Okay, so what i did was this. I turned in the assignment with everyone else, then I told the substitute teacher that I forgot to print one of my pages out (the memory isn't that reliable - it might have been "I need to staple my pages quickly) and quickly need to go back to the printer, so I did that, and I took like 5-10 minutes to go through the entire process. in reality i typed up the parts of the essay I didn't complete and then ran back to the english room and turned it in. luckily it WAS a substitute - I knew which substitute teachers tend not to notice.</p></li>
<li><p>KNOW the likelihood of a teacher not noticing something</p></li>
<li><p>KNOW when the consequences of your action will only likely result in being reprimanded</p></li>
<li><p>pretend to be forgetful from time to time in class, so that some of your mistakes will be attributable to your natural tendency to forget things. but don't be too irresponsible. this also depends on the teacher</p></li>
<li><p>don't get addicted to caffeine. Try to space out the periods you ingest caffeine so that there will be periodic days when your bloodstream will have no caffeine. This will prevent tolerance. Right now I'm pulling an all-nighter every two days, which is very possible because I always try to ensure that I have a caffeine free day in between so that the caffeine really works better when i actually am pulling an all-nighter.</p></li>
<li><p>if you're used to sleeping on beds, put all sorts of books on top of the bed and deny access to pillows and blankets while you're typing up your essays. i once started on a final project the day before it was due (IB dossier!) and i put so many of my books on the couch next to the room. I slept on the floor for like an hour (it's easy to wake up earlier when you sleep on the floor). this doesn't work as well if you have a clean floor though. I'm used to sleeping on the floor nowadays, so it doesn't work as well as it used to.</p></li>
<li><p>make "accidents". "stay too long in the bathroom". remember that the bathroom is an excellent excuse for so many things. as is forgetfulness. people tend to forgive people for "incidents of staying in the bathroom for too long" - because the same thing could easily happen to them.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>-if your school computers suck and take some time to load up microsoft word from e-mail or whatever, there is a better choice than e-mail. it's called wikipedia for transmitting notes and assignments - just create and edit your wiki userpage. when gmail takes a minute to load on some computers, that difference can be very critical
- if there are time lags in assignment turn-in and assignment collection, you could sneak out of the room and back (especially if it's homeroom) to print out the edited paper and then to suddenly sneak your paper out again. ugh i forgot the exact process.</p>
<p>finally, a very excellent quote from t3h golub:
[quote]
work and rest. a discovery and a secret
depressing discovery: i have a finite capacity for work. after thinking hard in lecture for an hour, i can't really do homework for a while. after doing one hard problem, it takes some time before i can do another. as a result, maybe about 10% of my time is utilized for actual productive thinking work. this is very depressing.</p>
<p>in my unproductive time, i mostly read the new york times, Slate, etc., play chess, talk to friends (usually about philosophy or math), and help high school students with the college application process ;-). but WAIT! these things are also WORK. (you can easily imagine people for whom reading the NYT, playing chess, or talking about philosophy would be quite hard and unpleasant work. if you want to find someone for whom helping people with college apps is work, go find a director of admissions).</p>
<p>discovery! the things i file away, psychologically, as rest, are actually work for other people. (the reverse is probably also true). there is nothing intrinsic or fundamental that makes some things rest and other things work.</p>
<p>what if you could trick yourself into thinking some "serious" things (not the frivolous things i do with my spare time) are rest? experiment!</p>
<p>so i got some forbidden math books (actually they are exciting because they are related to a question i am studying in my research). they are not for classes, and they compete with work in my classes. excellent!</p>
<p>so far, i have been quite successful in stealing away from my odious work to do this completely non-work-like reading, whereas actually to an alien from space (or a humanities major, which is really the same thing) my rest and my work are completely indistinguishable.</p>
<p>rapture! i have succeeded in pushing the figure above 10%.</p>
<p>i should say that i am mindful of the possible harms of this approach. by working so much on math or whatever, it is possible to burn out. (one of the sad but useful observations you will make at caltech is that some brilliant and incredibly successful people burn out -- lose the will to work -- by being too ambitious and not giving the mind enough rest.) in fact, i am often the one telling people to work a little less and to be kind to yourself a little more.</p>
<p>but really, this only begs the question. even playing video games (surely THAT is taking a break from work) is quite similar to doing your Math 1c homework in some absolute way. (what's not similar is plowing a field or something.) if you can really make deeply intellectual work your rest and relaxation, then you are at no risk of burnout.</p>
<p>we'll see how it goes. i like caltech because it's given my intellectual life enough dimensions that some of them can be filed as rest and others as work.
[/quote]
</p>