020517 | Productivity Dates And Coffee Shop Vibes

020517 | productivity dates and coffee shop vibes ★彡

Every year I find that the mid-semester is when my personal productivity is at an all time low. Motivation plummets as the workload for classes increases and professors are starting to cram in assignments before the end of the semester. It is stressful and can make or break your semester.

Here are some tips to get you through this difficult time!

-Maintain any previous study schedules you have been using this semester. Mid-semester is when these plans start to fall apart; students get lax with their schedules and then suddenly you are two weeks behind on your readings. Fight through the desire to push your rigid schedule aside and power through. IF YOU HAVE ALREADY BEGUN TO IGNORE YOUR STUDY ROUTINE- don’t panic. My best advice is to make a revised schedule before you truly fall behind and recruit a friend to hold you to it. Friends are great at holding you accountable if you think you can’t keep on top of it.

-Go to the library. Seriously, the library is a wonderful place that will make you feel productive if you are feeling lethargic. When everyone around you is working hard it kick-starts your motivation.

-Maximize your work during periods of motivation. Sometimes you just get short bursts of motivation where you can sit and do work for hours- make sure you jump on these whims and accomplish whatever you can. Similar to these motivated moments, there are also times where you can’t get yourself to sit down and work no matter how hard you try. By maximizing your productivity when you’re motivated, you can balance out these periods of inactivity.

-Have an emergency plan in case everything goes down the drain. It’s always best to be prepared for the worst case scenario. If your mental health takes a significant and rapid blow, have a plan of what you will do to keep yourself semi-functional. Maybe you have to alter your work schedule to working for five minutes with a thirty minute coloring break. Maybe you have a brand new set of highlighters to open if you cannot force yourself to read that twenty page articles.It is always important to have an emergency plan because little spurts of work is better than not working at all.

-Get some fresh air. Getting away from your desk is a good way to refresh for a few minutes, and getting outside gets your blood flowing and can help energize you. Sometimes I like to just walk around the block and look at the beautiful sights of nature around me (it sounds cheesy, but it gets me out of my head to appreciate the world for a moment).

-Work Hard/Break Hard. When you are working, do not let yourself lose momentum and and stray over to social media. When you take your scheduled breaks, do not let your mind linger on your schoolwork. You worked hard for that break and need to fully enjoy it. If you continue to think about work, you will not feel as refreshed when your return from your break.

-Stay off Netflix. Please, just trust me.

-Join a network of motivators (i.e. the amazing studyblr community). Sometimes the best motivation comes through the support of others. Everyone here in the studyblr community is/has gone through this mid-semester slump, and they are the best people to talk to if looking for advice (or even just a friend to relate to).

I hope at least one of these can help you get through this difficult point of the semester!!

ho ho ho where did my motivation go

Things to do while waiting for responses from grad schools...

See friends that you haven’t seen in months because you’ve been working on your application.

Read a book. Or ten.

Sleep more than two hours a night.

Cry.

Drink water!!!

Keep refreshing the online application submission page to check for updates.

Drink some tea.

Go outside. Engage with the world.

CRY.

Pet a dog.

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Someone please help me I can’t wait another two months for admission decisions....

modern disney princess study moods

snow white

apple and cinnamon tea, having the cleanest of clean studying spaces, instrumental covers of pop songs, needs to study on her own for important things but loves organising study groups, makes mind maps and diagrams for all her subjects, studies first thing in the morning as the sun rises, always gets a full night of sleep.

cinderella

likes dressing up even for the most basic of social work study sessions, never without a full pencil case and oversized mug of darjeeling tea, lives on her own away from her step-relatives and loves being able to study in peace, doesn’t do study groups but organises collaborative Google docs and always helps others who don’t get the material (she gets the nickname ‘fairy godmother’ as a result), can’t wait to become a social worker.

aurora

sleeps in late but is ready to go almost immediately, never without a full mug of vanilla coffee, everything is coordinated pink and blue, loves studying out in nature with her notes, listens to lo-fi music and romantic songs from the 1950s to help her relax, has the prettiest studyblr out there for a english literature student, audits fashion classes in her spare time, sketches out dresses when listening to her lectures.

ariel

mulls over what she needs to revise and study in the shower every morning, dreams of life after college, even though she loves her marine biology course, spends time at the marina any chance she gets, sneaks on her father’s yacht to study with the smell and spray of the sea around her, breaks up chunks of studying with swimming in the college pool, has a part time job at the pool to help support her studies.

belle

always overruns her study sessions with exploring new concepts and materials that aren’t on the syllabus but fascinate her anyway, studies with pastries from the local bakery and brings them to study groups, loves studying in coffee shops and cafes, practically lives in the library, never without her glasses, always about the extra credit, is planning on her masters and doctorate in mechanical engineering.

jasmine

needs google calendar to keep on track on everything, has the fanciest stationery, immaculate handwriting, studies with her cat on her feet, drinks only sweet turkish coffee, uses pomodoro technique but with keeping up with the kardashians, takes extra semester courses alongside her business management course.

pocahontas

super motivated environmental sciences student, spends a lot of time studying with the geography and geology students too, uses her studies as a way to advocate for environmental change, herbal tea all the way, covers entire tables in the library with her maps and research, leads live study sessions on facebook live, uses recycled paper notebooks only.

mulan

listens to lectures on her phone while she works out, uses her morning run to work out difficult concepts in her head, drinks only green tea when she studies, but chugs red bull when it hits midnight, uses the library late at night with noise cancelling headphones, listens to power ballads and motivational jams.

tiana

the hardest working student you’ll ever meet, balances work and school really well, takes breaks on her waitressing and barista jobs, dark roast coffee and beignets as study rewards, can survive on three hours sleep, listens to ambient beats and nineties pop to focus, starts internship applications two months early, takes time off when exams are over to just sleep and watch netflix, dreams up ideas for restaurant dishes when she should be rewriting her notes, queen of time management.

rapunzel

notes tend to be speckled with paint, sketches as she listens to psychology lectures, motivating as all heck, listens to guitar music when she studies, likes lemonade to drink alongside her study, hoards books about subjects she’d like to study, her bullet journals feature prominently on her instagram, has highlighters for everything, documents her entire studying process on snapchat.

merida

listens to heavy metal and rock music, never without her massive headphones, uses archery as an analogy for everything in her classes, studies for sports science on her rooftop when things get too loud at home, happier when she’s out in the woods studying, red bull and coffee as study aids, hates studying but does really well in exams.

anna

has no formal organisation method for her notes, super colourful highlighters everywhere, always hits snooze, hot chocolate with cinnamon all year round, amazing at energising people in study groups, queen of the study whatsapp group for their theatre and performance class, has nothing but broadway musicals on her study playlist.

elsa

doesn’t do study groups, but will occasionally study with anna if she needs it, likes her cold press coffee and frozen lattes, uses pastel highlighters exclusively, reads the textbooks from cover to cover and not just the assigned readings, leads the curve for her history and environmental chemistry course, has debussy and saint-saens as her soundtrack for studying.

moana

studies in the early morning, copies everything from her international history and politics classes, loves to revisit her notes in the sunshine or at the beach whenever possible, doesn’t do caffeine but drinks a lot of orange juice and water, volunteers for opportunities with the aged and children any chance she gets, has aims to be a community organisor.

11.14.17 • oof.