Study Hacks

College Chronicles is a blog-based reality series that follows real students attempting to overhaul their study habits. Click here for the series archive.

The Season Finale Continues

This is the second of three wrap-up episodes for the College Chronicles series. Last week we presented Leena’s look back on her chaotic term. This week we turn to Jake, the computer science major from Tufts. When we first heard from Jake he was struggling to find a balance between academic performance and debauchery. During his freshman year he tried being a grind. He got good grades, but had no fun. He then tried to loosen up, but was dismayed to see his grades plummet and had to drop out of the frat pledging process to salvage the term.

By the time Jake and I met for coffee, in early October, he had found some success using the efficiency-based techniques in Straight-A to maintain good performance without sacrificing too much of his social life. At the same time, however, he was struggling with the problem sets in his tough computer science courses. In addition, he was beginning to look beyond graduation, and wonder what he should (and could) do now to help improve attractive options in post-diploma life.

Here is how he fared…

How did your semester end up?

Considering my final grades, I would say my semester ended up extremely well. I went to parties, I threw parties, I played rugby (until I got injured), and got straight A’s (three A’s and one A-).

I’m now a member of an entrepreneur club at Tufts, which appears to have a lot of resources to help you succeed in entrepreneurial and business ventures. [ed: one of Jake’s interests for post-graduation life.] I hope to spend a lot of time with this group next semester and get involved in some related projects.

What changes worked well?

Your method for solving hard problems sets described on Study Hacks was probably the most beneficial tip I received. [ed: this post was, in large part, a summary of the advice I gave to Jake when we met in person.] On Sunday, I’d review the questions, do what I could, and leave it at that. I’d go to recitation the next day and ask any questions. I would then meet with the TA and other group members the night before to clear up and finish any problems. These sessions each took around one or two hours.

What didn’t work?

One problem I had was dealing with group projects. It’s impossible to ask 5-6 other students in your group to adhere to your own “student workday” schedule.

This, along with the rather loosely-structured nature of my other courses caused the student workday approach to be fairly inconsistent. There were some weeks were I had tons of projects to do and problem sets I didn’t understand that ate up more time than I had allocated. Other times I had little work to do, and I ended up twiddling my thumbs, or over-studying and stressing out about whether or I’m working hard enough or if I should be enjoying me free time more.

Based on this experience, what advice would you give other students?

ORGANIZE YOUR TIME! Although I mentioned the problem I had with the student workday earlier, it still helped tremendously in terms of giving me peace of mind and a structure to my day. This comfort of having a structured day is half the battle in obtaining the confidence to do well in school and other extracurriculars endeavors.

Also, when you have pockets of free time during the day, really do something that gets your mind away from academics. While I did well academically, I made the mistake of not taking advantage of my free time last semester, and I ended up sitting around worrying about my grades when I should have diverted my mind to other endeavors.

Thank You Jake

We appreciate the insight you gave us into your experience. For all of our math and science readers out there, I’m sure it is heartening to see how the problem set beast can be tamed while allowing a social life to rage on.

College Chronicles is a blog-based reality series that follows real students attempting to overhaul their study habits. Click here for the series archive.

The Conclusion of College Chronicles

It’s hard to believe the fall semester is over. It seems like it was not that long ago that we decided to launch the College Chronicles experiment. Our goal was to follow a few students through a full term at college and learn what it is really like to revamp your study habits under the pressures of real life. We had a lot of ups and downs, and I think, in the end, gained some excellent insight.

This post represents the first of three wrap-up episode — one for each of our students. I have asked them to reflect back on their term, and share the lessons learned. We start with Leena…

Our Friend Leena

Leena, the double-major from MIT, certainly had a roller coaster experience this fall. She came to us in chaos. Did not take well, at first, to the advice provided as a potential remedy. Hit rock bottom. Then reconstructed her life in her own way — ending up with a custom-crafted, highly effective system for surviving the MIT crucible.

I asked Leena to reflect back on her College Chronicle experience. Here is what she had to say.

How Did Your Semester End Up?

This particular semester has probably been the most difficult I’ve had in college. But I think its probably been one of the most useful semesters in terms of learning about myself.

Once I made the decision to take next term off [to recharge and take an internship], I figured at that point, all I had to do was end the best way I could. So I followed your method of test preparation and went to office hours to clear up questions I came across whenever I happened to have issues. I actually got a solid A on my final paper in my neuro class, and my TA emailed me to tell me how awesome it was.

The semester didn’t wind up perfect — but all in all, this will probably, ironically, be the best term I’ve had at MIT in terms of academics. I think this partly because of my higher grades, but mostly because I’ve finally seen that I am perfectly capable of getting A’s at MIT, something I didn’t really believe before.

What Changes Worked Well?

• The act of realistically plotting out when I was going to do things and how much time they would take.
• GOING TO CLASS. It makes life so much easier.
• Studying early enough to ask my questions at office hours.
• Doing homework in office hours.
• Not going back to my room until I absolutely had to.

What Changes Did Not Work?

• Trying to organize my papers. I reverted back to my usual pile.
• A workday that started in the morning and ended at like 8 or even 10 at night with few breaks. I guess I’m not destined to be an investment banker.
• Taking notes in different ways. It’s more about the act of writing stuff down for me.
• Making too many changes at once.

Based On Your Experience, What Advice Would You Give Other Students?

• Go to the doctor if you don’t feel well. Understand that that is okay, and that the correct course of action when you’re having a hard time is NOT to just slog through it and hope for the best.
• Don’t try to be hardcore. Don’t be the kid who is all proud of himself because he is double majoring in two obscenely difficult majors. Nobody actually cares if you are spreading yourself thin or being hardcore. Do you really see yourself in 10 years thinking: “Man, I am so proud of myself for taking that exam in thermo bone tired because I stayed up till 5 hacking/playing smash brothers/drinking/doing something else ‘cool’ and getting a C.” Hopefully not.
• Sleep at night. If you can’t, figure out why you can’t and then start sleeping at night.
• Know you’re not alone. If you feel overwhelmed, or sad, or freaked out, or lonely, and think that for some reason everyone else is adjusting well and you’re the only person who is struggling and has problems, you aren’t. Almost everyone feels that way at some point. Go talk to someone about it.
• Keep in touch with old friends and your family
  
• Don’t be afraid to do different things. If you think you want to or need to, take time off. I’m so, so excited about this next term - I have awesome job offers. The only thing I’m not happy about is that I didn’t do this earlier.
• Have fun. Nothing is more important than having fun. when i look at any time in my life, the most successful and happy times were the ones when I made having fun a bigger priority than doing well in school.

Thank You Leena

I think I speak for all Study Hacks readers when I thank Leena for taking the time to share her experiences with us over the past few months. I think we all learned some valuable insights from her willingness to share.

College Chronicles is a blog-based reality series that follows real students attempting to overhaul their study habits. Click here for the series archive.

The Leena Saga

When we last checked in with Leena, things were not going well. Her overwhelming MIT workload was taking a toll. She was procrastinating, often leaving work until well after midnight. She was falling behind in classes. Her sleep was erratic. Her stress growing.

It was time to intervene. We sat down and made a full audit of her work responsibilities. We then worked out a student work day that would actually capture all of this work. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would give her a handle on her obligations and keep her from falling behind or staying up late. Seeing what was possible inspired Leena.

But things didn’t go as planned…

Leena Takes a Turn for the Worse

It didn’t take long to realize that Leena wasn’t fully embracing the student work day plan. During the first week, she reported that she had tried to start her day working in the comfortable butterfly chair in her room…and promptly fell back asleep. Then there was a group project that forced her to stay up late. Then she noted that her attempts to work at the crowded student center were problematic, as they represented more of an extended social hour than something productive. She began procrastinating on work until 2 or 3 am, so should wouldn’t miss latenight social hijinks in her dorm.

In general, she found the whole work day idea demoralizing. The thought of working straight from morning to early evening was too much. So she let things slide back to the way they were.

Then things got worse. Much worse…

Leena Stops Hits Rock Bottom…then Makes an Amazing Comeback

The erratic sleep combined with the increasing stress of falling behind eventually bloomed into full-fledged insomnia. By Thanksgiving break, Leena was barely sleeping. Work had slowed to a crawl. She was passing out in class. She failed a test and forgot a presentation worth 15% of her grade. Things looked bleak.

While home for the holiday, Leena saw her family doctor. The physician administered a swift kick in the ass. Her message: “you’ve got to start fresh and regain control.” Her perscriptoin: a strict regimen, including…

1. No caffiene and only light food after 5.
2. Eat at scheduled times.
3. Use your room only for sleep.
4. Fight stress. Meditate. Do yoga. Use logical thought processes to fight negative habits when things get busy.
5. Follow strict work schedules. Seperate work from play.

It worked. The rules allowed Leena to sleep once again. Armed with the rest — and fearful of returning to her old broken down state — she began to employ, with great fidelity, a full arsenal of improved study habits; an arsenal that includes:

1. Scheduling the full week in advance. No surprises.
2. Doing problem set work during office hours, with the TA’s help, early in the week.
3. Make strict plans and schedules to cut wasted time out of group projects.
4. Follow a modified student work day that occurs in chunks: Important work in the morning. A break in the afternoon. Labs and office hours in the evening. Try to get work done in the labs and office hours. Every two days, do a fun evening activity with friends. A final work chunk until 1 AM before sleep. “Working at night isn’t bad,” says Leena, “as long as it’s scheduled and you’ve been having fun.”

The result, one of the most low-stress, productive weeks at MIT that Leena can remeber.

Conclusion

What’s the moral hiding in the epic tale of Leena? After reflection, she reports that the key was taking her daily schedule and habits seriously.

This is especially true of hard majors at a hard school like MIT. Students often fail to realize that the number of hours required to be a succesful student. A double-major in a science program, for example, may need to work as many hours as a new lawyer (over 60 hours a week).

Such a schedule demands respect. Without a serious plan things can get out of control. Once you recognize the challenge ahead and start looking toward solutions — as Leena did this past Thanksgiving — your world becomes a signficiantly more controlled and exciting place.

College Chronicles is a blog-based reality series that follows real students attempting to overhaul their study habits. Click here for the series archive.

Welton Wants to Study Earlier

Welton, the Harvard Linguistics major, wrote me recently asking for help. He was unhappy with his test preparation habits. Too often, he was leaving studying until the night before. He wanted to get it done earlier and with less stress.

As we learned last time — when I helped Leena inject some rationality into her chaotic MIT experience — my study philosophy dictates that the first step to improving academic performance is to add some structure to your schedule.

The Student Work Week

In the last episode of College Chronicles, I introduced the student work week. See that post for more details. The basic strategy, however, is simple:

1. Count how many hours of regular classwork you need to accomplish during the typical week.
2. Pick a cutoff time such that if between when you wake up and the cutoff, all you do is work in the library, eat meals, and attend classes, you will finish all the work counted in the previous step.

The strategy is straight-forward, but powerful. Each morning, you get up and work until your cutoff point. During this period you never return to your room or see friends. When you finish, you’re done for the day. As you might expect, this makes the student experience a lot less painful.

It’s time for Welton to jump on board the student work week wagon…

Welton’s Student Work Week

Welton estimates that he has 24 hours of regular work that he needs to complete each week. After analyzing his weekly schedule, we decided on a work cutoff time of 6 PM. This resulted in the following work week schedule:

Welton’s free hours before the 6 PM cutoff time are marked in orange. (Notice, I also added a half hour for lunch during the week days. Don’t forget this!)

Adding up the free hours bordered in orange, we find that this schedule provides the needed 24 hours of work. Here are the important details:

1. Welton’s work day doesn’t start until after his 10 AM class. This means he can get up at a reasonable hour and have plenty of time for breakfast and getting ready for the day.
2. A 6 PM cut-off time is quite reasonable. It leaves, more or less, the entire evening free for Welton to do whatever the hell he wants. Trust me, this is a wonderful thing.
3. Saturdays are free. A good time to relax and to sleep off the damage inflicted Friday night. Also, as discussed, declaring a productivity-free day on a regular basis is an effective way to stay balanced and energized.
4. Welton’s Sunday Ritual requires four hours. This is within the safe range of Sunday work hours. If this number grew larger than 5 hours, we might consider putting some work on Saturday or extending the work cutoff time. (Too much Sunday work makes it hard to recharge for the upcoming week.)

Some Rules for Scheduling Studying

Now that Welton has a student work week, we can address test preparation. The key rule to keep in mind: test prep should never kick regular work out of your student work week schedule.

If a class cancels its normal workload for the week because of an upcoming test, Welton can re-purpose the hours for this class within the student work week to study for that test. In addition, he should consider adding two evening work blocks (2 hours each) and one long Saturday work block (3-4 hours) for the last full week before a test. Combined, these three additional blocks, which exist outside of the student work week, provide an extra 7-8 hours of studying. This should be sufficient for most tests.

If multiple tests are coming up. Welton should consider studying for one test two weeks in advance and the other one week in advance. In general, the rule here is to try to confine all test preparation to these preselected extra studying blocks. This certainty in the schedule reduces stress and keeps the work spread out in intense, short blocks — therefore avoiding pseudo-work.

Next Steps

After Welton adjusts to the student work week, the next steps in his transformation include:

1. Introduce more efficient note-taking and reading strategies to reduce the cutoff time for the student work week — freeing up more time for relaxation!
2. Use instant-replay booths and on-the-fly quiz-and-recall to reduce the time required to prepare for tests.
3. Introduce some regular study blocks within the student work week to reduce test prep to a non-exceptional activity.

Stay tuned…

Related Posts

• The Straight-A Gospels: Pseudo-Work Does Not Equal Work
• College Chronicles #9: I Help Leena Perform a Time Audit and Establish a Student Work Day
• Follow a Sunday Ritual
• Declare a Productivity-Free Day
• The Art of Stealth Studying: How to Earn a 4.0 With Only 1.0 Hours of Studying

College Chronicles is a blog-based reality series that follows real students attempting to overhaul their study habits. Click here for the series archive.

Time for Change

Over the last eight episodes of College Chronicles, we’ve met our three students and observed the challenges they face. Their stories are familiar. On college campuses across the country students struggle with the same issues: procrastination, staying up too late, getting stuck on problem sets, running of time to get work done, feeling overwhelmed by an avalanche of work.

It’s time for a change.

Today’s entry marks the beginning of my intervention in the students’ academic lives. Step by step, I hope to transform our students into efficient, relaxed, academic machines. Along the way, you will hear reports from the field on what it’s like to attempt to apply this advice in practice. If you too are hoping to make a change in your study habits, I recommend that you follow along with Leena, Jake, and Welton. As always, keep me posted on how things work for you.

We start with Leena. And apply the first two step in my multi-step transformation process: the time audit and the student work day.

Leena’s Busy Schedule

Last Friday I met Leena at a crowded MIT cafe. Over coffee, she confessed that her intense, double-major schedule, was becoming hard to handle. She found herself working sporadically throughout the day, and often resorting to late night pushes, well after midnight, to get things done. She was constantly over-sleeping, leading her to miss meetings with her research advisor and skip out on classes — putting her farther behind and increasing her workload. The physical stress keeps making her sick. Her body can’t take much more.

Let the intervention begin…

Step 1: Perform a Time Audit

The first step of my study habit overhaul is to determine exactly what you face. I asked Leena to bring with her a weekly time planner marked with every regular class, meeting, lab, recitation session, and office hour that she needs to attend.

Leena’s weekly schedule looked like this:

My first observation: she’s busy. In addition to classes she has recitation sessions. She must attend these as important material, not covered in lecture, is often covered only during these smaller gatherings. She also schedule time to work on her UROP undergraduate research project. She can do this work, in theory, whenever she wants. But her adviser demands a certain number hours per week. If she doesn’t treat it like a class that meets at set times, it might not get done. So we added it to the schedule.

The weekly schedule, however, is only the first part of the time audit. The second part is to list, for each class, how many hours you typically spend doing readings, problem set work, regular writing assignments, and lab write-ups. When Leena and I crunched the numbers for her schedule, we discovered the following:

Leena’s Non-Class Academic Weekly Workload: approximately 20 hours

The time audit is now complete. We know, from the weekly schedule, when Leena actually has free time to work. And we know, from the non-class academic workload estimate, how much work she actually has to do each week. It can be scary to see these facts laid bare. But, Leena, as with many students, found relief in facing the beast head on.

Now it’s time to tame it…

Step 2: Establish A Student Work Day

The path from an average student to an exceptionally efficient student ia difficult. It would be overwhelming to deploy a full arsenal of strategies all at once. Too much to remember. Too much change.

The power of the next step in our transformation — establishing a student work day — is that it’s an easy way to reap immediate benefits while also laying the foundation for more advanced efficiency hacks that follow.

Establishing a Work Day

1. Choose a start time for each weekday morning.
2. Choose a work cutoff hour sometime in the afternoon or early evening.
3. Using your weekly schedule (from the time audit), count up all of the free hours between your start times and the cutoff hour for Monday through Friday. Add 3-5 hours for Sunday.
4. If the total number of hours is much less than the non-class academic work load you calculated in your time audit, then loop back to step (2) and choose a later cutoff hour (or reduce start times). If the hours are too much, then loop back and decrease the cutoff. Otherwise, you’re done.
5. Every weekday morning, get up 30 minutes before you start time. Get dressed and then immediately get the hell out of your dorm room. Grab a fast, energy-packed breakfast. Then disappear. For the entire day, until your cutoff hour, never return to your dorm room. You are either in class or working. When you get to the cutoff hour, you’re done for the day. Spend the entire evening doing whatever you want — with complete relaxation.

Leena’s Student Work Day

Because of Leena’s unusually busy schedule, we choose the relatively late cutoff hour of 8 PM (we will reduce this in later steps once we begin focusing on the efficiency of her technical habits). Combined with her new plan to get up at 8 each morning to go for a jog with her friend, we came up with the follow free hours in her student work day:

The blocks of free time are marked in orange and labeled with the number of hours they contain. When we add up these blocks we find that Leena has over 23 free hours. In other words, if she works her 9 to 8 work day during the week, takes Saturday off, and then works before her Sunday lab, she should have no problem completing all of her regular workload.

Notice, Leena has a heavy a schedule. When I did a similar calculation for Jake — who is taking a slightly reduced course load this semester — we had him done by 7 PM and taking all of Friday and Saturday off.

Advanced Tactics for the Student Work Day

A couple notes on building a student work day that works:

1. Change your sleep habits. An early start time is the single easiest way to get an early cutoff hour. To account for weekday partying, choose a single weekday on which you allow a later start time. At Dartmouth, for example, fraternity meetings go down on Wednesday nights. So Thursday morning can have a late start. At NYU, as with many city schools, Thursday is considered a party night, so a late Friday start makes sense.
2. Schedule test studying and paper work outside of your student work day. When something non-regular, like a big exam, enters your work horizon, schedule the hours outside of your student workday. Choose one or two evenings, take advantages of an open Saturday, or carve out an extra block on Sunday. (Later on we will work on integrating this work more naturally earlier in the day).
3. Make a schedule each morning over breakfast of what your are going to do during each free hour in the day. This keeps you focused.

Leena’s First Week

Yesterday, Leena and I chatted about her first week of applying steps 1 and 2. She reported that she was feeling significantly less stressed as the ultra-late nights had been eliminated from her schedule. (Her immune system thanks her).

At the same time, however, she was struggling to keep all of her work within the established work day.

“This morning, for example,” she explained. “I woke up and started working in the butterfly chair in my room, then ended up falling back asleep and missing my first class.”

The advice I gave her is crucial: A student work day only works if you get out of your room and away from your friends and exist only in classes and the library until your work cutoff point. The best way to get started: a breakfast ritual. Go to the same place, get the same breakfast, and leave with the same cup of coffee. Head to the same quiet corner of the library as every morning and get to work. It’s easier to focus when you know that cutoff hour is coming. You just have to make it until then.

Cheat Sheet for Steps 1 and 2Here is a summary of this week’s advice for those of you following along at your own school:

• Step 1: Conduct a Time Audit
  • Create a weekly schedule that shows all of your regular obligations.
  • Count up the total number of hours you need to spend each week on work outside of the classroom.
• Step 2: Establish a Student Work Day
  • Choose a start time for each morning and a cutoff time for each evening.
  • Make sure the free hours during this workday are enough to accommodate all of the work reviewed in your time audit.
  • Every weekday, do nothing but work during the work day. Do nothing but relax once it’s over.

Coming Up

In the next steps, we will tackle the students extracurricular commitments and start overhauling specific technical study habits to reduce the number of hours they need to spend working each week. Stay tuned…