Seriously desperate student trying to get an A+ average

[...] the Pre-Exam Slump Pre-exam slump? Check out this article, It says that students tend to create study plans every day; but the problem is that study plans [...]

specially in combination with glitter stickers, magic markers, an empty stretch of wall, and blue-tack. My wall looks like it was attacked by the Property Law Fairy.

Definitely let me know how your system ends up working, I love hearing about outlandishly complicated schemes. (I once, for example, wrote a computer program to help me study for Art History. It was a blast…though, as it turned out, less effective than using a blank sheet of paper.)

breaking conventions is a great way to remind you that you’re your own boss,

Amen.

I’ve also noticed that there are certain triggers that COMPLETELY distract me

This analysis of triggers is insightful. Thanks for the addition…

As for people who find it hard to that the first step, I think identifying concentration zones as well as triggers makes it much easier for that first step. For instance, I have realized over time and enlightening dreams, that I work best in the morning time. This is not because as most people say the mind is “fresh” in the morning. In my case it is simply because so far, touch wood, I am not preoccupied by other things in the mornings. So though I’ve been a late sleeper-late riser all my life, I am now transitioning to the hopefully early sleeper-definitely early riser mode. I know I will have to break the pattern by myself, but it really only takes once to get the cycle going.

I’ve also noticed that there are certain triggers that COMPLETELY distract me and are capable of making me reach an abysmal low, recovering from which can often be close to impossible.For instance, a bitc*y person who always talks bad of me, gets to me and I can reach that low. There are other triggers, for instance someone I really like, who used to make me go to that extreme comfort zone which I can’t shake myself out of, and am stuck being preoccupied for months about thoughts of the person(yes, I used to be a hopeless romantacist) This might be hard to imagine, and I know you might see this as a lack of self discipline, but believe me this isn’t a mentally controllable thing. There are some things that the human heart is so emotional about, that it can be close to impossible to jerk your mind to take control again. The way out of this is to become completely aware of the triggers.Triggers are almost always a person, that either drown you by shredding your self confidence or bring you to the extreme high comfort zone by boosting your morale to the extent that you are preoccupied by nothing other than thoughts of them. Once you’ve identified the trigger, promise yourself to just isolate yourself from the trigger. Just as asthmatic attacks are triggered from things like dust, mental rationality attacks are triggered from certain people that your mind is allergic to and needs to be kept away from for the sake your own sanity. Isolate yourself IMMEDIATELY from people and thoughts that addict you because they can and will ultimately take your sanity if you procrastinate removing them from your life. More importantly, don’t take things to heart. If a person talks badly behind your back all the time, just remind yourself ITS NOT YOUR FAULT, and stay as far away as possible from people who make you feel low about yourself. On the other hand, people who make you overtly happy and CONTENT are equally dangerous to your abilities to make your mind think independently and smartly(shrewdness is often needed in doing well in exams). Well in this case, and this is often harder than the being low case, remind yourself how horrible it feels to just be out of a broken relationship and remind yourself that there are ALWAYS people who are broken hearted. So its not fair that you’re on an emotional high and so contently preoccupied with one person when there are others around you who need support. The way you can empathize with them is being in your senses and doing work like a responsible person who has a mind of their own.

I hope any of this made sense, maybe I’m venting a bit too much and should stop in the future to avoid long posts

… Y’know, I am going to do this more often even if it does not make a single percentage’s difference to my grades.

Breaking the rules sound great. I did some things last days which stunned my classmates. ‘Why should you do that?’ is something I heard a couple of times. Great!

Thanks for this good post, the picture reminded me of 3 episodes of Heroes I didn’t watched yet, I was doing good on studying, but I have to watch some heroes now!

Stefan
http://StudySuccessful.com

still have one big problem though; when you happen to have two midterms scheduled about one day appart

In a perfect world, your regular work is contained in an autopilot schedule. You then setup seperate plans for each exams (perhaps using the project folder method?) that use time outside of the autopilot. It doesn’t really matter if the exams happen to fall on the same day or not, your study plans for the exams should spread out the work for both over a reasonable period of time.