#its been a minute since i posted one of my journals or planners lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

coralstudiies · 4 years

Text

hello everyone! I got an ask from an anon asking for tips on time management so i decided to type this out before school starts heheh…

poor time management and procrastination, unfortunately, plague just about all of us lol. people with a short attention span (like me) and who are pretty much always on their phone (me again) and who hate scheduling are the most susceptible to these.

over the years i struggled with time management(studying the night before the exam 🤙🏼) but! these are some tips that have helped me in scheduling, avoiding procrastination and improving time management.

1. Write it down

as always, we’re starting with BEFORE the actual task. write all tasks, assignments, projects and homework, test dates down somewhere (notebook preferably so that you dont lose it. it doesn’t have to be your bujo and you do not have to start a bujo for this specific reason!!!) and write the deadlines. this is subconscious pressure to do work once you get home. also, since you can see everything, it’s easier to schedule it out later

2. Use travel time

i cannot stress this enough!!!! sorry that it appears in all my tips posts but it truly is very useful. for short commutes, review the content you’ve learnt so that when you start on your homework, you’ve already got the hang of it. ie you dont struggle to understand the chapter and be put off from finishing your work because you hate it. long commutes can be used to complete work itself. i like to place some books and a file under my worksheet while i write (if i have a seat lol) or you can take this time to plan your time in greater detail

3. Actually plan your time

you dont have to fancy it up with like, brush pens and highlighters. just do something on google sheets or excel. divide the day into appropriate blocks of time.

for me, since i use a focus timer (50+10 or 100+20, rare cases i do 120 with a long break after that) i keep my days in 1hr blocks. so i’d block in about 1hour after i reach home to chill, clean up and so on, 2hrs for homework and the remaining time can be divided by hour/2hours to complete my work. you can tweak the timings to work for you but so far this one suits me pretty well.

4. NEVER RUSH YOUR HOMEWORK AND REVISION WHEN PLANNING!!!!

i repeat, never rush. because when you give only, say, one hour to review 3 chapters and you fail to do so within that time limit, you feel demoralised and hence, will not want to work more. this is a very common issue i believe. sometimes i would rush revise and when i couldnt stick to the timelines, i’ll feel so defeated that i’ll probably binge watch youtube to cure my self-pity LOL

give yourself an ample amount of time. Assign one or two hours a day as ‘delay time’ (this was my free time) so that you can catch up on anything that unfortunately, you couldn’t finish. Assign one day of the week to be the ‘delay day’ -- anything that you cant finish the week before, do it now. this means that you can still ‘save’ your plan even if it screwed up somewhere along the way. it works wonders, believe me! i used to have ‘delay hours’ after training where i would (ahem sadly) study from 2330-0030 if i needed to. while i was tired, i always got my work done.

5. Prioritise

this one needs no explanation. i usually choose which task to start on based on a combination of deadline+importance+graded/non-graded. i start early for graded assignments because they count towards my semester’s final grade and i want to hand up the best quality work i can. find a system which works for you! note: start project work and large assignments early.

you can assign simple tasks first to start the ball rolling, and proceed with harder tasks.

alternatively, if you’re at your prime focus, start with the hardest and scale down to the simple.

6. Make good use of holidays + Wake up early

ok i used to game a LOT and go to training a LOT (still happens now lol) during holidays but i wouldnt get any of my holiday work done.

do your holiday homework first. schedule your time well, and maybe stay home and resist the urge to go out for the first 5 days. finish all your work (again, schedule well) with breaks in between.

thereafter, schedule maybe 3-5 hours a day to revise. if you’re going out with friends, i’d suggest you wake up early to study because once you come home you’re usually dead tired HAHA

so how early is early?? during my o levels study break i would wake up at 0330 (yes, for real) but i slept at 2130 every night. so thats 6 hours of sleep wew but AT LEAST i was very productive. think about it this way: waking up early to study at 0330 makes you more productive than studying till 0330. you don’t have to wake up THIS early, but preferably early enough when the sky’s still dark so that you can fit in those extra hours. DO NOT sacrifice sleep. that’s why you can see i’m still sleeping my usual amount, albeit sleeping and waking earlier.

more perks of waking up early: its quiet outside, the air is cool, your mind gets into the ‘get shit done’ mode, and if you absolutely have to use your phone to search something up, your social media probably won’t be pinging. in other words, early mornings are actually a great time to study! remember to eat something though :>

7. Remove all distractions to prevent possible procrastination

YES i know this is the dreaded one. lock your phone somewhere inconvenient and put the key outside your room. or if you don’t lock it make sure your phone is far away from you as possible. please i know how deadly your phone can get so just put it away.

if you find yourself drifting away and looking at something else, remove that.

alternatively, change up your study environment. you don’t have to go to the library or something (you can if you want to). this is as simple as studying in a different part of the house. a new environment helps to ‘prick’ my mind and help me ignore distractions. i dont know if this is scientifically proven but oh well, worth a try.

8. 2-minute rule

this is something i picked up from @studyquill! it’s pretty helpful (although i was skeptical at first). Tell yourself you’re only going to work for 2 minutes, which helps you get into the workflow. chances are you’ll get so into it (ok not in an excited but rather in a determined way) that you don’t feel like stopping.

if you’ve had a long day and after 2 mins you still don’t get any momentum, just stop and take a 15 min break. that means you’re really too tired and there’s no point in forcing yourself to complete your work.

9. Use reminders

set reminders on your phone for the tasks you need to do. for example, if you’ve planned to start work at 1500, set the reminder to ring 5 minutes before so you have time to gather all your stuff and ready yourself to do work. no excuses!!

set reminders for your breaks as well! those are equally important.

10. Reward yourself

if everything you need to do is done, give yourself a pat on the back. have you been extremely productive? great, treat yourself to your favourite drink/snack. honestly i feel like many of our brains function on the ‘reward’ system. if we reward ourselves for a job well done, we’ll be more willing to complete tasks and stay on time in the future (the brain thinks there’s a reward coming)

remember to take care of your mental health as well! this is one good way to ensure you don’t end up mentally exhausted.

Apps to help with time management

1. Tide - focus timer, meditation, beautiful and calming soundtracks (my fav!)

2. Pendo - everything in one tbh, schedule, to-do list, journal etc. (my fav too!)

3. Forest - focus timer $$$ (free alternative: flora)

4. Donut Dog - focus timer

5. Todoist - minimalist to-do list

6. Minimalist - minimalist to-do list

7. Google Calender - your entire schedule

8. Todait - smart study planner

a quick search will bring out many more! note these are all available on iOS but i’m not sure about google play. you don’t need everything to be productive. i rely only on Tide, Pendo and my iPhone calender and reminders. It’s less about having many ‘tools’ and more about how you properly and wisely utilise them to boost your productivity and manage your time.

also i don't think pendo is very well-known?? so this is how its interface looks like for 'Notes':

it's pretty, simple and clean and there are several themes to choose from! i rly like it omg HAHA (not a promo)

alright that's all! hope it helped :>

974 notes · View notes

studiylog · 4 years

Photo

my younger sister is a soon-to-be freshman and as a 2020 high school graduate I though it would be very big sister of me if I were to hand off some advice to the younger children such as herself.

Why do I need a planner?

life if going to start being VERY VERY hectic, especially if you do other activities besides school work. Even though we are currently in quarantine it is good to have some sort of organization of your life or else things will get mushy and time will pass by quickly. Just have one usable planner to get your academic year started. Write down assignments and other chores such as watering the plants even. It is better to practice getting organized the sooner the better. There are many different options for planners! here are some of the ways I have used before:

Bullet journaling:

I used to bullet journal during the school year back when we were all still in class. It was super helpful and helped me keep my mind on track. Bujo was my favorite to use during the school year because I would work on spreads during downtime. Here are some pictures of my spreads (they were never pretty hahah!) :

Pros:

customizable!! Make whatever spread you want!! Flowers and stickers or even just a good ole' to do list will work too! I used to have whole blank pages just for planning club events and choreography. I used to have a mood tracker too!

relatively cheap Any good notebook/journal will work! For my senior year I used my 1/4 full sketchbook for junior year as my bujo and it worked pretty well!

easy to navigate! Since you are the one who is creating the spreads, you are the one in charge. You like lots of trackers and drawings? Put it in! You only like monthly spreads? GO AHEAD!!

Cons:

Easy to get caught up with the "aesthetic" and not think your bujo is pretty enough...BUT WHO CARES!!! Its your planner!! It should be fluid and comfortable to use daily. You can have pretty spreads one week and then black bullets points of the next! As long as it is helping you get your shit done its good! I am an advocate for those super pretty bujos with calligraphy and kpop boys, but I know that I myself cannot get too complicated with bujos or else I get super caught up with making my spreads super pretty and I'll get too anxious to use it and then forget about it.

You actually have to do it yourself Its a blank journal, which means you have to draw out all the spreads yourself. oop.

Planners (the ones you buy!)

I've only truly used two store-bought planners in life. Moleskin and Passion planner!:

Moleskin

I used a moleskin for my sophomore year of high school because the super expensive moleskins finally went on sale so I copped one. It did its job, but there wasn't anything really special to it that blew me away. It was very dependable, like an earthbender.

Passion planner (passion planner spread)

This is another planner I bought on sale! I loved this one, it helped me organize my SUPER hectic junior year. I took on a load of 4 AP's, a sport, and two clubs to run! There were many options for organization and I really liked the different time slots. I would buy this again but I really like my current planning tools at the moment.

Pros:

Pre-made spreads Its much easier to concentrate and do work with a store bought planner because you wont have to take the extra time to draw out spreads and trackers! These were great during my hectic years where I didn't really want to use up 30 minutes to make an organized spread. Especially the Passion planner because it was organized as a timetable! I wrote the exact hours I would be available to do things, and scheduling was much easier. (Also the dates are already written down...saves lots of headache)

Cons:

$$$ A really nice planner with a bunch of different spreads can be quite pricey depending on where you are looking. You don't exactly need a fancy-shmancy planner, but most of the ones i've actually used on the daily ended up being more expensive ones :/ If you look out for sales though you might find a good deal! Knowing my cheap-ass I got both my Passion planner and Moleskin on sale :)

Online Planning

This is what I have been currently using under quarantine! I currently use the app notion for LITERALLY EVERYTHING. This thing literally sorts my life out. I started using notion due to Rowena Tsai's video and @noodledesks master post! This was a life saver now that everything is online. I can put teacher website links and online course schedules on both my computer and my phone! The only problem is that it is a somewhat complicated interface due to its customizability. Nonetheless, I think it a wonderful plat form.

Rowena Tsai’s video

@noodledesk ‘s Post

Pros:

Online platform If you are currently a student, most of you work will be online I assume, which means links, videos, PDF's, and other documents will be your coursework! Well where will you organize all those things? ONLINE duhhhh...

Customizable If you like how customizable a bujo is? You can do the same with Notion! I have tons of pages, databases, and task lists which organize my life. If you look into it more you will see that the app supports tons of different templates and have some pre-made ones too. I usually just take a premade template and customize it to fit my needs.

Can connect to other devices Notion also has an app! It can be found on both the apple store and google play store. This means even on the go you can make changes to your planner.

Cons:

Can be hard to navigate If you aren't very tech-friendly this might not be the one for you. When I first started using notion I just used the templates on their own, and I still was confused for how to use them because I am not very tech-friendly for my age (which is quite bad). But after a couple hours of re-organizing and watching youtube videos I got the hang of it. Now its super easy.

I’ll upload images of my planners in another post attached to this one because I don’t know how to format them nicely on this post lol!)

35 notes · View notes

ilegnangeli · 3 years

Text

Random May Thought #1

I think I may have forgotten how to properly write an entry on Tumblr. Much features have changed since I last posted here. If it weren’t for Instagram’s connect to Tumblr feature, I wouldn’t have updated this blog in years. Last I posted was a picture of my penmanship in Mandarin. I was still a student in China back then. And well now, I am back to the mothership.

Two years ago, COVID-19 didn’t exist. Oh wait, it did, they just hadn’t named it yet or they haven’t discovered it yet (I actually remember they used to call it nCoV). Two years ago, I was still lying in my bed in my spacious dorm room probably wondering why time flew so fast. Two years ago, I was a completely different person. I had plans two years later, you know. Plans that got soiled. I didn’t think I would still be here. I should be experiencing spring elsewhere and yet I’m basking in the scorching heat of summer in the Republic of the Philippines. Not that I’m complaining. Alright, fine, I am.

Life has been pretty tough lately. I think I wrote the same thing in one of my book reviews in Goodreads. After reading that book by Paul Kalanithi, I became more aware of how finite life is. I’ve always loved books that sorta ended in tragedies (maybe it’s the masochist in me lmao). But reading a memoir of someone who suffered a similar fate to those fictional characters I’ve read before, reading through his personal struggle made me think about how life—at the end of it all—is truly fragile.

I also read through my old entries in here. I laughed at some. I smiled at some. I sorta became sad after reading some entries. But I’m glad I wrote. Now, I’m feeling like continuing this thing I do often when I’m overwhelmed by life: writing. There’s a sense of bittersweetness to reading your old diary or journal entries for the world to see. Two nights ago, I dug through my old notebooks and read some of my written entries in there. Ten, nine, eight years ago versions of me who loved writing and sharing her thoughts on pages of now worn-out notebooks. Again, I’m glad I wrote.

Writing is probably something I’m not really best at but I’m good at. And suffice to say, I enjoy it. I love writing and it’s probably going to be the end of me. Funny how going back home, here in the mountains of Rizal, transforms me into a sentimental freak. The life in the city is probably the most ideal, future-focused lifestyle but the old soul in me will always go back and try to rekindle the sad and happy memories of the past.

Right now, I’m sat at the end of my bed. With a laptop. Typing these random thoughts. I see my piano on the left. I see my bookshelves right in front of me. And I see my luggage, to my right, that I haven’t used since I got back from China (I didn’t use this for my trip to Japan, I used a smaller one lmao).

I leafed through the pages of my old planner. It was the planner I used for my final year in university. I saw this “Dream Board” that I ever so creatively put together using cutouts from magazines, stickers, and sticky notes. I wrote there that I would make films, music, and literature. Funny how those “dreams” became reality. One by one. I also remember listing down the places I’d always wanted to visit in that planner. I remember writing all the countries that I would, one day, visit. And by some weird miracle, I’ve ticked off so many of those places. Well, except Amsterdam (because damn, the Netherlands is so far away). But don’t worry self, we’ll get there. Eventually. Lmao.

My dream board was extended to the next page where I listed down so many things that I would save up for. Teenage me would be proud of herself because ten years later, she has owned that John Green book collection (she now even has at least three versions of each book John Green has published, I know that’s ridiculous but please stop judging me lol), she has also owned two MacBooks (an Air in 2015 and a Pro in 2020), she has bought a digital piano (God, I srsly am in love with this piano, teenage me would cry out of joy I swear), and she has travelled to a lot of her dream destinations and countries. Teenage me would be so proud of who she has become. I seriously sighed as I typed that last line.

Ten years. Feels like an entire lifetime ago. I didn’t think life would be this fast-paced. I mean, thanks technology but boohoo because here I am, somehow struggling, asking myself every single day, hour, minute why adulting has to be this difficult. I sorta blame my teenage self because, she wished for this moment. She wished to fast-forward to my yuppy self. But then again, who am I to complain, THAT WAS ME ten years ago. Bitch, you did not. Lmao.

Earlier this afternoon, it’s nighttime as I type this, I spoke with one of my co-workers. We haven’t known each other that very long. But it feels like we’ve known each other forever. She’s a Libra, just like me. She’s a 92-liner, too. Oh the joy! And she’s a psych major, I envy her. Sometimes I still wonder why I didn’t take that path in university. Accountancy was shit and as much as I loved my Sintang Paaralan, I just didn’t want to be there anymore for personal reasons. You’d know, if you ever met me in person, I’ll tell you. Wow, am I really that good at moving on? Anyway, being a communication major is and was a great experience. I hate competitions but I joined so many competitions in that field and lost some but you gotta win some, right? So I did. Thank you for the wonderful experiences, Piyu.

Whoa, I didn’t think I’d be writing this long. But I’m not done yet. So as I was saying, I spoke with her. She isn’t just a colleague to me now but more like a best friend. I never thought I would meet someone my age who spoke the same language as me before her. I’m a nerd. If that isn’t already obvious. And if being caught by our director talking about Sigmund Freud and Maria Montessori isn’t enough proof, then I guess let’s talk about global warming, greenhouse effect, and the melting polar caps. I like talking about ideas, phenomenas, and books. Crucify me! #ReasonsWhyImStillSingle

I’d been praying about something recently. And I only got that clarity when I finally spoke to her about it. We’ve been on this topic for about a month now. And occasionally we like to make fun of this topic. But I guess, when something isn’t really meant for you, God will make a way for it to not, you know, find its way to you. Thank you, LORD.

She told me so many things that made me realize that the person I like right now probably has his reasons why he’s not making the first move. And I understood that. She insisted that my feelings were valid and it was okay for me to feel those things—to think those things. But oh my goodness, I told her, this person is so lucky. Like I swear to God. Because I don’t really “like” guys that often. I don’t feel easily attracted to anyone. So it is by some miracle that I ended up liking this particular human sub-specie (bro, you should feel privileged, too bad you won’t be able to read this). Anyway, It was so clear to me. And I had to move on. Immediately. But what’s weird about it is that I just took a nap. And when I woke up from that nap this afternoon I felt nothing. Like that feeling expired almost immediately. It completely dissipated. So ridiculous, right? I’ve harbored feelings for this person for some time now (it hasn’t been that long to be honest) and I’m just over that feeling now. In an instant, too. I don’t know why. It’s probably one of my talents.

Wow, I really do move on fast. Don’t I? Am I cruel (to myself) that way?

So I had decided to busy myself with work. Plan about my graduate studies. And hope for the best. But for now, I’ll enjoy the rest of my leave from work. I sighed. Again. As I wrote that. My head hurts. I don’t know why. But it does. And I almost typed that in Korean.

On another topic, I’m thinking about compiling all of my literary works in some way. I also feel like commissioning my niece and my older brother to illustrate some of my poems for me. I’ve actually thought about this like a year ago amidst the pandemic. But the lazy ass in me just kept postponing. And I blame myself for procrastinating because all my “plans” haven’t come to fruition. But I’ll get my shit together. Eventually. I need to make this happen. At least before I expire. Lmao.

P.S. I’m tired. I actually stayed up late last night. Or should I say earlier this morning. I video called one of my ex-colleagues. It was also a really nice chat. But I’m not used to staying up late anymore. I’ve burned tons of midnight oil in university. NEVER AGAIN. I’m sleepy to be honest.

P.P.S. Tomorrow’s my elder sister’s birthday. I’m going to post ancient pictures of her on my stories.

#random thoughts #About God's Chaser #May the 5th #2021

0 notes