Exams are upon us! Competition is to the point where how we perform in an exam is dependent on what we eat for breakfast. I’ve picked up some nifty tricks over the years to make studying for finals that much easier.

1: Draw it Out

I spend more time managing my time then I do on being productive. Do you know how scary that is? It’s scary because when I’m trying to do things more efficiently, I ultimately fail. I worked out a pretty disciplined study schedule for myself since Saturday. I’d like to think that I’ve more or less stayed true to it. When you’re planning out your studying times, don’t cram it all on one day. It helps to spread it out over a series of days. Take it one step further and break it down by Chapters.

No don’t even do that.

The thought of studying a chapter a day scares me. I know it scares you too. What you should do is break it down by topics that are covered in certain chapters.

Here’s an example from a studying outline that I did for my Criminology 104 course. My prof explicitly stated many times that the exam would be heavily weighed towards the latter half of the year. In other words, everything post midterm would be examined. I set up my schedule accordingly.

Sat. Dec 1: Labelling Theory. Check
Sun. Dec 2: Conflict Theory. Check
Mon. Dec 3: Feminism (Blah). Check
Tues. Dec 4: Post Modernism. Check
Wed. Dec 5: Anything else. Working on it!

You know what’s bad though? It took me two hours just to draw everything out for all of my courses. I set specific times of day for when I would study which course down to the hour. It took me two hours to do that! But at the end of the day, it was well worth it. This way, I had clear and concise deadlines to meet. I knew how much time I had to allot for Cognitive Science and English, etc. My Crim midterm is tomorrow morning. We’ll see if this pays off.

2: Google Calendar

I’m a huge fan of Google Calendar. I’ve used it many times to plan out my days and weeks well in advance. If you need reminders, you can set it to activate popups or send you a quick email. Events can be easily organized (assuming you’re not using Facebook). Using it has been incredibly self intuitive.

3: Post its

Our favorite form of reminders is back and has been digitized. You can get yourself a copy of the Lite version of Post-it notes which is completely free. Just like the pen and paper version, you can scatter postits all over your desktop to helpfully remind you of things to do. I was introduced to it a while back by a friend and I still use it to this day. My MacBook has one even. They’re useful for taking down quick reminders or notes. In my case as a writer, I have one that keeps track of writing ideas.

Obviously you notice it’s finals season. I can’t spare the time right now to write at my normal post-a-day rate. But once finals are over, I guarantee this place will get much livelier.