The quiet before the storm. The exam season is approaching, and for many students, it’s something that is dreaded every year. Year after year, you end up in this position and ask yourself, “How did I get here again?” Everywhere you go, you can find students frantically revising and planning out a month-long crash course, all extremely stressed about what’s to come. Here’s how you can chill a little bit, and still manage to ace your exams.
One Step At a Time
Start by making a plan to study a little every day. Dedicate around 15 minutes to each subject, and oftentimes you’ll find yourself wrapped in your studies for way longer than you intended. The hardest part about studying isn’t actually studying, it’s actually starting the studying. Procrastinating for hours is easy and all, but you just need to give yourself a little push to begin. No more of the excuse, “I’ll start studying tomorrow”, you have to start today. There is no time better than right now.
How to give yourself that motivation to begin you ask? You should start by planning out your days, weeks and even months. Try to stick to a routine and you’ll find that you begin studying at the right times more often than not. Spread your time evenly with calendars, and remember to put breaks in between. There’s nothing wrong with taking a break to go to the gym, eat food and shower after hours of vigorous studying. But remember to not go overboard with your breaks, keep it to a healthy amount. Calendars can also motivate you if you plan out what you are going to study that day. A plethora of people feel like they have so much to get done, and when they begin studying they have no idea where to start and then get overwhelmed and leave it for another day. Make mini-milestones for you to hit each day like, “Revise chapters 2, 3 and 5 in physics today”. This gives you a clear goal to hit and can reduce the stress that comes along with deciding what to do.
It’s a Marathon, Not a Race
Burnouts are a serious issue you have to deal with as well. It can be quite the task to be asked to study 5 hours a day every day, and usually, I find myself doing that for 2 days and then not studying at all for a couple of days. This is followed by a repeat of this cycle, and clearly, it’s not working. Most people including me just can’t do that, so you should start by relaxing in between studying sessions. You can use Pomodoro, or even animedoro to keep yourself going through the day. It’s like a nice little treat for yourself after a solid session of hard work. Exercising relieves stress, cold showers are great and reading time is relaxing as well. If you feel super stressed out, you could go even as far as deleting social media for some time, trust me it won’t hurt to do so. Don’t be so hard on yourself if you take breaks, it’s okay to feel overworked at times, one day off won’t make or break your exams.
Stay Chill
And finally, the most important part to all of this: actually remaining calm during your exam. I don’t consider myself the most diligent student in class every year, but somehow still achieve higher grades than people who I know study extreme amounts more than me. The trick is to remind yourself to stay chill, I always know that if I’m super anxious during an exam I’ll make silly mistakes that I would normally always get right, and that’s what has put me ahead each time. Remember it’s just a grade, your entire life and self-worth don’t depend on it.
