Pros Of Not Being Able To Sleep: I Am Suddenly Very Productive. Working On My Thesis Becomes Less Daunting

Pros of not being able to sleep: I am suddenly very productive. Working on my thesis becomes less daunting and more manageable. There are less distractions from social media and other obligations. The world is quiet. I am wide awake.

Cons of not being able to sleep: I am wide awake. It is finals week. I need every spare minute of sleep to survive long hours slaving over papers and reviewing textbook chapters. No one is awake to answer questions about my thesis. Working on one assignment leads to anxiety about finishing other assignments. It's 1:30AM.

I am tired, but oh so very awake.

Hey y’all. It’s me, your token stressed studyblr.

There are 26 days between now and the end of my first year of grad school. There is also a boatload of assignments due in these 26 days. These assignments make up over 50% of my grade in all three classes (no pressure, right?).

My distance run-loving self thought it would be funny to treat these last 26 days like a marathon- A schoolwork marathon. I will post my productivity and other adventures on here for your amusement. Plus, I hope it will be a motivator for you if you’re struggling to reach the finish line!

You can follow the tag #cosmicmarathon if you want to join in or watch me angrily post about psychometric validity and performance management systems for the next three and a half weeks.

Let the race to the end of the semester begin!!

~CosmicStudyblr

the importance of self care

six reasons why you’re (going to be) okay

why being clean and organized brings you more success

you messed up, and that’s okay

don’t let frustration get to you

important things to remember

how to study while dealing with mental health issues

studying with depression

what to do when you loose all motivation

if you have anxiety, try breathing in sync with this

need a boost? some natural antidepressants

getting over a fear of studying

developing a growth mindset

small things to do that make your mind feel clearer

a guide to relaxing for people who probably need a break

how to catch up after taking a mental health day

what to do when you’re feeling overloaded with work

ways to avoid burnout at university

avoiding burnout

staying calm at school

what to do when your work seems like trash

when you study and still fail a test

failure, as a perfectionist

working hard is important, but

on studyblr and self care

what to do on a crappy day

how to improve your grades

things to do after a long study session

studying when on your period

stress affecting sleep?

tips for balancing sleep and education

how to fall asleep

sleep tips

how not to be a blanket buritto

get up early and enjoy the day

+ productivity masterpost

+ back to school masterpost

How should I study?

This is probably the most asked question. And I will be totally honest now and give you some advice on how you should and how you shouldn’t study.

The ideal way of self studying a language

doesn’t exist. Or at least I haven’t found it. But there is no method which will give you a 100% success. You know that everybody is different and everybody learns different. I have made my self study plan (here) for Korean. In my opinion, it works awesome for me, and I think that I’ve created this one with common sense. But in this post I don’t want to go deeper in “which plan should I follow”. I’d like to focus on the methods you might use to achieve your goals.

Let’s divide it into 4 (and optional 5) sections: Vocab, grammar, listening speaking (and eventually signs).

Vocab

Learning vocab is the foundation of your language. You can’t build a house only by a plan. You must also have the bricks. But I have some common “mistakes” people make. Here comes my list of what to avoid:

Long study sessions once a week

Reading the word 500x to think you might learn it this way

Letting the learnt words on the side

Not saying the words out loud

Never writing words out

Making vocab studying monotone

Learning the unuseful vocab you’ll probably never need

Those are so important points. In several books I’ve seen that the brain learns faster if it repeatedly does something. Also if you don’t use the things you’ve learnt after a certain time again, you might forget it again.

Try those things instead:

Study sessions over the whole week

Reading, writing and listening to the word

Make a record of the words you want to learn and listen to it

Once in a while repeat also your “good” words

Say words out loud which are complicated

Make studying fun (Use flashcards, post its, make it comfortable, make yourself a tea)

Learn vocab which is very frequent or which you will need specifically for your needs

Grammar

Grammar is a rather hard discipline. Also here common mistakes:

Learning the rules by heart and thinking “that’s it”

Only practicing the sentences in your book

Not making sentences on your own

Making grammar boring

Letting it be only because you’ve understood it once

Giving up on it just because it seems hard

Replace it by this:

Try to decode it before actually read the explanation.

Try to learn the sense behind the grammar.

Use what you’ve learnt and build your own sentences. You’ve got problems? Means that there are some points you should work on.

Grammar isn’t boring (okay sometimes) but you can make it fun if you use also like with vocab stuff you like. And also: If you always connect studying grammar with something what makes you happy, for example always make a smoothie if you study grammar, than it will also have an input on your studies. More about that in the next post)

Keep going and master the challenge

Sometimes it’s also good to take a break and try the next day. It might be that you’ve overworked yourself

Listening

And here again the top mistakes:

Not focusing on listening

Or listening to very fast music and complaining how stupid you are

Listening to “non real language”

Not listen at all

If I say that a language must be spoken, it also means that there are people which listen. And that means that you also have to study the other side of the language. So many people neglate this part. This was also my mistake in Japanese. But I have some good replacements:

Watch TV soaps or dramas (the most natural language)

Start from the very first day

Don’t get mad. It’s hard to understand things, but you will get better

Celebrate if you’re right

Take notes if you’ve heard something interesting

Listening will get your best friend. It doesn’t only improve your ear but also your writing. Because if you know how the pronounciation changes, you’ll also know how to write better.

Speaking

It’s hard to speak sometimes, but in this section you can also make mistakes by not even doing anything:

Being speechless

Not speaking from the beginning

Not learning the pronounciation properly

Not trying to get faster

It really depends on the person how fast the progress is in pronounciation, but if you don’t work from the very first day on it, it will get hard for you. Replace those methods by this:

Speak whenever you can

Talk to yourself

Try to find someone who might correct you

Learn the pronounciation properly

Try to get faster from time to time

Fluency comes where axienty goes (wow I should copyright that)

But don’t try to be perfect

Progress is made by many many little steps taken to get to a higher obstacle. Work smart and make those steps.

Optional: Signs

The probably hardest part for any Japanese/Chinese learner: the signs. I’ve seen and I’ve done even more mistakes. Use that and learn from me:

Writing a kanji over and over again

Thinking you might get along without signs

Buying course books which tell you how to learn “2000 kanjis in 2 months” or so

Not thinking when learning

Learning only one reading style

Learn a kanji and don’t repeat it

Okay guys. When I say that, please take me serious. You can’t learn 2000 kanjis in 10 days IF you don’t have a super brain. And I think it’s okay. Not everybody is talented, but there are other ways. And one way isn’t writing it 50 times per hour. Of course you have to write it, but not so many a day that you might get sick of them. And only because you’ve learnt one kanji, doesn’t mean that it will last for your whole life in your brain. Replace by:

Combine different methods 

Repeat signs

Buy if you are 100% sure you NEED that and if you’re not so sure about it, think while on work “Is it worth it that I am working for it now?”

Use what you’ve learnt. The feeling is so rewarding

Also here: Make it funny.

To self study a language it is best to develope his own style. But with some methods it will take you certainly much longer than with others. Try it out and see what works.

🌼🌻study smarter🌻🌼

(here are some study tips straight from my psych notes)

1. interest: the brain prioritizes by meaning, value, and relevance so u remember things better if ur interested

find a study partner

do extra practice or research

teach it to someone else (this works so well!)

2. intent: be actively paying attention. very little learning actually takes place without attention

use a concentration check sheet (every time u get distracted, put a check on ur sheet. this is supposed to program ur mind to pay attention)

while u read, talk back to the author

ask questions during lectures (this is scary ik!! but do it!)

3. basic background: make connections to what u already know

preview and skim the material before u read it. or google it!

write out a list of vocab words before a lecture and leave some spaces between them to fill in during the lecture

read ahead of lectures

watch crashcourse tbh

4. selectivity: start by studying whats important

look for bolded words, graphics, pictures, chapter review questions in ur readings

listen for verbal clues like emphasis and repetition during lectures

make urself a study guide as u read and write down questions for urself to answer later as review (kinda like cornell notes)

5. meaningful organization: u can learn/rmr better if u group ideas into diff categories

apply vocab words to ur life

make flashcards and sort them (try not to have more than seven items in one category!)

use mnemonics

6. recitation: saying ideas aloud in ur own words strengthens synaptic connections! when u say something aloud u r forcing urself to pay attention

after u read, ask urself questions

talk abt what u learned w/ classmates outside of class

again, teach someone else

7. visualization: ur brain’s quickest and longest-lasting response is to images

convert info into a chart or graph

draw it out

make a mental video of a process

look at picture/video examples

8. association: memory is increased when facts are consciously associated w something u already know. memory = making neural connections

ask urself: is this something i already know?

9. consolidation: give ur brain some time to establish a neural pathway

make a list of what u remember from class

review notes at the end of the day, every day

stop after reading each prg to write a question in ur notes

make ur own practice quiz

10. distributed practice: we all know cramming doesnt work but we do it anyway! but yeah short and frequent study sections work better

make a daily/weekly study schedule

create a time budget/time tracker (track everything ur doing for a week and see how u can be more efficient w/ the time u waste)

divide the reading/vocab by the number of days before an exam and do a little bit each day (u can use sticky notes to divide ur reading)

other tips:

stop stressing! this sounds stupid and it isnt going to be easy, but anxiety causes u to lose focus. try ur best to think positively. sleep a lot. minimize ur caffeine intake. take a walk maybe

when u need to remember something, look upward or close ur eyes (when ur eyes are open ur using visual parts of ur brain that u might not need to be using)

find a rival! (like the person right above u in class rank) secretly compete w/ them (envy can improve mental persistence bc it makes u focus more intensely) but dont overdo it! 

walking and sleeping build memory storage in ur brain

eat flavonoids! (grapes, berries, tea leaves, cocoa beans make neurons in the brain more capable of forming new memories + increase blood flow to the brain)

obstacles force ur brain to try harder, so space learning lessons apart or create a puzzle to solve or change ur physical setting

when the speaker suddenly says something relevant to my research