Managing your time during the period before exams can be difficult and stressful, and most of us find ourselves tight not only on time but also energy and motivation. Below are our top 5 tips on how to manage and optimize your time and efforts during this year’s exam season.
Starting early
Start early! Most exam related stress is caused by managing your time poorly and starting too late. Starting early will give you a head start on your work and allow you to take things at a much slower pace, which will give you room to study as adequately as you want. This exam season, we don’t want your first look at the books to be the night before the exam 😉
Planning it out
The most important thing we recommend you do is to create a study plan or schedule, this will help you in organizing and managing your time better and allow you to be calmer and more focused. Start by creating a list of your upcoming exams organized by date, and accordingly prioritize them. Next, break down the material you need to study, prioritizing the concepts you find more difficult as they will consume the most time and effort and you want to be at your prime concentration while studying them.
Taking Breaks
Finished a difficult chapter? great job! we think you deserve a little break, maybe a 10 minute meditation?
We can’t stress enough how important it is to allocate specific times in your studying schedule to take frequent breaks. Taking some time off to give your brain a chance to relax is vital to avoiding burnout and helping you feel refreshed and re-energized to continue studying. Do something relaxing like taking a nap, going for a 10 minute walk in nature, watching an episode of your comfort show, taking a shower, meditating, or doing some yoga or exercise. It’s important to listen to your body, this will allow you to maintain a healthy mental state and mindset towards studying and exams, which we believe is the key to success.
Rewarding Yourself
Rewarding yourself for achieving your study goals no matter how small they are is crucial to keep up your moral and help you feel a sense of accomplishment. Managing the stress and anxiety of the pre-exams period becomes much easier when you feel accomplished and rewarded, like you’re making progress and getting things done, which will motivate you to keep going.
Managing your expectations
Lastly, managing expectations for yourself is also incredibly important. If you go into it with unrealistically high expectations you will only end up feeling disappointed and discouraged, and as we mentioned, mindset is the most important thing. Having a resilience mindset is what will help you get back on your feet no matter how many times you don’t preform well, and what matters the most is that you tried your best. Having realistic expectations will heighten your sense of accomplishment when you achieve the goals you set, and will give you the confidence boost to be more resilient and accepting of the times where you don’t preform as well as you wanted to.