Study Advice - Blog Posts

how to study while you're sick (guide by a girl who is sick but has a quiz tmr)

Have a blanket with you while you study

Study on your bed or sofa or where ever is cozy (no one cares about rules)

Breaks are your best friend

Keep a water bottle with u while you study (stay hydrated)

Study in small chunks not all at once

Take it slowly calm down and don't overwhelm yourself (I need to take my own advice for this)

Day 1: study sprint

Tasks

History chapter 1

Geography: climate

Practice for Urdu

Add math homework

Progress: woke up early and studied history before school and finished the rest in evening. It was a pretty busy day with other responsibilities but got 2 hours of studying in. I’m so tired

Study count: 2 hours

tomorrow’s tasks

History chapter 2

Finish geography climate

geography water resources

islamiat: pillars of Islam

also if anyone wants to be study buddies or accountability partners I’d love to have a friend

study sprint 2025

Anyone studying for their board exams or exams coming up can join. This challenge is till 25/April/25.

The rules of this challenge are

Study 1 hour daily minimum (ideally more)

Study time does not include homework necessarily, projects or school work neither does it include work done in school

Track progress on biweekly basis

Set weekly targets

Little advice to help

Make a study plan or schedule

Time block the time for your study sessions

Keep weekends as a buffer period (don't add too many tasks to it) to finish any work you didn't complete throughout the week

Keep a planner or calendar to plan tasks and schedule dates for exams

Have an accountability buddy to stay on track

Use whatever study method you want like pomodoro method (I prefer the 45:15 timer or 50:10)

feel free to message me or comment to talk and get an accountability buddy (or a friend)

in my academic weapon era ✍️

#3. Keeping momentum

You are tired. You are lazy. You can't do anything. Those are the voices I hear, and you might hear, after a long day at school. All I want to do is lay down on the couch and take a nap or get lost scrolling on my phone. But I know if I do, I'm going to spend the next two hours doing absolutely nothing.

Try not to stop doing stuff when you have a break. And I don't mean you should be constantly working. Make yourself a cup of tea. Journal. Call your friend. Something that keeps your momentum. It's harder to stop when you're stationary compared to when you're already moving.

#2. Red light, Green light

More study tips! Separate your to-do list into three buckets: red light tasks, yellow light, and green light.

Red light tasks are the hardest things you have to do. Typically, there is some planning involved, different components, and it will take you multiple days to work on it. Think essay, presentation, big project.

This might come as a surprise but studying for hard tests I put in the yellow light category. (If you’re cramming put this in the red category, but pls don’t.) You are going to want to split up hefty homework assignments and big tests into smaller actionable pieces. The idea is to study a bit every day. The idea is that there is more flexibility and resources while you study, and each problem generally has a clear solution.

Green light is something like emails, routine Khan Academy practice, reading a chapter of a book, or small homework assignments. The point of my system is to be flexible and put things into categories based on how I’m feeling and how much time there is as well.

What this does is it reduces your to do list into three sections, makes a plan, and helps you quantify how urgent tasks are.

Here is my typical schedule for these tasks:

After school:

Break for 1hr

Green as a warmup

Yellow for one hour for 1-1.5hrs

Red after dinner for 2~hrs

Green until tired .5hrs

Weekends:

Finish ALL Green in the morning Sat

Red for 5~ hrs (or however much you need) Sat

Breaks interwoven between

Dinner and relaxing Sat evening

Yellow for 2-3~ hr Sun

Red for 1-1.5hr Sun evening

Day off where I wasted the entire morning:

Red for 2hrs

Yellow for 2hrs

After dinner do Green until tired

#1. NO MORE GUILT

Ever find yourself crashing out after a long day at school, sitting on your bed watching Netflix, and getting nothing done? It sounds horrible when I put it that way. Bed rotting, doom scrolling, whatever it is, it’s never a fun thing.

Here’s the thing though— it doesn’t have to feel that way.

There are two states that we can consider you to be in. Focus and Relaxation. The situation I described above is caught in between these two states. You want to be in a focus state, but you’re overwhelmed and stuck in your relaxation state. The opposite is also true. You try to get work done but catch yourself distracted, on your phone, instead. You are in a focus state, but you want to be in a relaxation state.

The number one change you can do to help your mental health is to choose a side.

When you are in your focus state, commit. You put your best effort in and keep your mind engaged in what you are working on. No distractions. This is going to help you get so much more work done in a shorter period of time. As you practice this, you are going to realize that when you are in your focus state, distractions are less enticing and you will be able to maintain it for longer.

Disclaimer: if you have to tell yourself to “lock in” you aren’t doing it right. Forcing yourself into a focus state is never going to work, it's just going to lead to that same, tiring, useless feeling.

To actually decompress and feel happier, you can’t have second thoughts in your relaxation. Set a timer if you have to, but you need to let yourself enjoy whatever you are doing. Imagine this: after a long hard day, you treat yourself by getting some popcorn, bundle yourself up in blankets, dim the lights, and get to watch the movie that’s been on your bucket list for the past week. So much better than what we started with, right? The cycle of guilt relaxation starts with wanting to decompress but feeling guilty the whole time. You don’t rest and aren’t happy because all you’ve been thinking about is “I have to get work done.” Instead, you get more tired, and you need to continue laying around or scrolling on your phone.

You don’t have to change your entire routine— just be more mindful about which state you are in and how you can take advantage of that.

“Since it is now past 2 AM, perhaps it’s time to get some sleep and tackle this tomorrow?”

Especially as a student, it seems necessary to sacrifice sleep in order to study for a test more or get that last homework assignment done, and I get it.

It’s a never-ending cycle— stay up late to study, too tired the next day, procrastinate because you’re tired…

I used to sleep around 8 hours, which is generally the norm, when I found that I was still procrastinating and still tired. I thought that this was due to stress and therefore needed to study more to reduce my stress about upcoming tests. This led to me sleeping 6-7 hours instead.

These past couple of weeks, I’ve decided to listen to my body a lot more, often sleeping 9-10 hours.

I’ve become more productive: being able to work towards my goals without losing out on my health, being more energized, and also having more free time.

It seems counterintuitive, right? Sleeping three hours more should reduce how much I get done in a day, but no. I realized I spend a lot of time while I study being off track or doomscrolling on my phone. This actually is a logical result of being tired— not having enough energy to focus on a task and needing the dopamine in a fast release.

So what do I do if I enjoy working late at night? Especially in high school, there’s strict schedules and timings for when you have to be up so that you can be on time. Unless you can get a prep period, you have to wake up at 7:00 am.

I started taking naps as soon as I get home. If I’m not feeling as if I’ll get anything done, I try to get off my phone and just listen to music or daydream as I try to get a little bit of sleep.

If I keep this up, hopefully Copilot will stop criticizing my sleep habits 😁

target haul!! i went to go grab two notebooks (one for physics and one for math) i normally just use one for the entire year, but this time i’ve already run out of pages in one semester 😳

my computer science teacher says f the trees (his words not mine) and that you should use the paper to do your work and not try to compress it super small. a little extreme, but the point is, don’t be shy to take up space with your notes.

i went for a walk later this evening to decompress and it was so pretty— prepare for more sky pics because i will be going outside more often after today.

- final review physics 2

- ap frq practice

i failed one of the frqs which was pretty disappointing. focusing on the positive, i now know what i need to practice before my final tomorrow!

study tip: eat chocolate 🍫 (unless you’re allergic please don’t die)

i couldn’t sleep last night and ended up falling asleep at 5 am. waking up this morning was really difficult and all my muscles were feeling achy.

i didn’t think I would get anything done, but then i had half a chocolate bar…

- rc circuits problem set

- rc circuits quiz

- electric circuits unit test

now i’m spending the evening working on python and then scrolling on pinterest 👀

typically, sweeter snacks are frowned upon because of the high sugar content which can cause you to crash and make it difficult to maintain focus.

however, chocolate also contains cacao. cacao improves focus and memory, and also relieves stress.

before school, i’ve started adding cacao nibs to yogurt, oatmeal, and smoothies. it’s a great way to boost your mind in an easy and delicious way :)

happy new year! 🎉🎉🎉