From the category archives:

Time Management

The Ultimate College Study Space: How To Create Study Tranquility

March 25, 2010

I have spoken about college study spaces vs social spaces at length throughout this blog and with my online tutoring program. I think finding a solid study space is probably the best thing any student can do to focus their study methodology and get ahead of the daily workload college demands. With that in mind here is a quick review of the fundamentals of college study spaces.

Location, location, location

The same thing they say about real-estate is true in college study spaces, location is EVERYTHING! I’ve had a few great study spaces throughout my undergrad and graduate degrees which have served me very well, all those places had excellent location in common. Here are the fundamental things I look for:

  • Ideally you should be more than 10 minutes away from a social space. This is important because you don’t want to tempt yourself with a visit to a friends place or a beer that’s only 5 minutes away.
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How multitasking can actually be a good thing

March 17, 2010
Thumbnail image for How multitasking can actually be a good thing

So my buddy Stefan (see previous post on paper editing) has put his new book out. For a guy who learned english from friends episodes, I’m amazed that he can keep an English blog running. He’s got a new book out and guess what, he wants you to have a free copy. Here is a small snippet of some of the things you’ll learn.

How multitasking can actually be a good thing

This title is probably against everything you’ve read the last couple of years. Multitasking can’t be good, focus is the way you should work. Focussing on one thing at the time is the mantra on a lot of blogs, myself included, hackcollege included and all the other big blogs also. But I believe you probably could implement multitasking, in a good way.

Why even bother, my system works

It does. I’m convinced your system for focus works. But does it feel right? Do you feel right about shutting everything off, about getting at a place where nobody else is, about leaving your friends, just for the sake of focus? I don’t think so. And during your focus session, are you thinking about twitter, about texting someone about watching youtube? The point I try to make is that this form of productivity doesn’t bring you any comfort, it only exhausts you. You will feel tired, and after a big focus session, you can’t do anything but the things (i.e. twitter, facebook and texting) you tried to avoid during your focus session.

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Top 3 Ways Premed Students Sabotage Themselves

January 6, 2010

I’ve been keeping a big secret from everyone over the last few months and now I’m finally ready to unveil what I’ve been working on all this time. I’ve been studying how premed students succeed (and fail) by talking to thousands of students, premed students, teachers, admission officers, medical students, doctors and education experts to put together a system that is going to completely change the way you see premed. The product is in my opinion amazing and we will be announcing the price really soon. In the meantime you can check out the product and get a free premed course component here.

I’ve been working on this project for 6 months and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed as we’re going to have a ton of free tips, tricks and content, even if you don’t want a copy of the paid program you can still try out the intro program absolutely free.  As an example, here is a free snippet of what you’ll get for free when you check out the free program.

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How To Prepare Yourself for the September College semester

August 13, 2009
Obama's ready... ARE YOU?

Obama's ready... ARE YOU?

Hello Fellow Students!

The new semester is quickly approaching and I have gotten an email from a student who has asked me for some advice on preparation for the new semester.  I wrote him a pretty in depth email and thought I’d just repost it here.  Enjoy!

There are in my opinion four fundamental things you must prepare yourself for to be not just a successful student but a successful university participant.

Prepare a strong study skills plan

Get a plan on how to achieve college success and analyze it.  The best laid plans are sometimes doomed to failure from the start if you don’t analyze your plan for weak points and shore them up.  As a perfect example if you plan on studying 4 hours a day, is that realistic when you only studied 4 hours a week last year?  How are you going to stay accountable to your new plan? (hint hire a tutor, which this student already did)  What are the consequences when you don’t meet your study plan?

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3 Ways Freshman Can Avoid College Stress

July 16, 2009
A stereotypical freshman before midterms

A stereotypical freshman before midterms

Hello upcoming college students

Although almost all my students are already in college, for those students who are entering college there are a few important practices I believe you must implement and keep up if you want to have a stress free college life and avoid the dreaded college student stresses.

The first half of my university career was god-awful, filled with stress and worry primarily from disorganization and a lack of adequate study skills.  So I’d like to give up and coming college students about to enter the wonderful world of college some friendly advice on how to avoid college stress and keep it off for the next four years.

Number 1: Get a focused college study methodology and mechanize it so that it becomes automatic.

Mechanizing your college study methodology is incredibly important for long term stress free college careers.  Once the system is automatic it stops becoming a burden.  It becomes a daily ritual like brushing your teeth or taking a shower.  Here are some starting pointers that can get you started.

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Partial Attention Disorder

July 2, 2009

multitaskingYou’ve probably heard of Attention Deficit Disorder

Well I think many students have another condition that is wider spread and worse than ADD.

Are you ready for this one?

Partial Attention Disorder

In my 5 years as a teaching assistant and university tutor I’ve seen all manner of study problems.  From over studying and writing more notes than the text book has pages to notes written on napkins!

However, in my work the most common mistake I see in students study skills is a lack of adequate concentration on a single task, otherwise known as the dreaded multitasking monster or what I lovingly call ‘partial attention disorder’

Why is PPA so pervasive?

The main reason why PPA is so pervasive is because many students see multitasking as an advantage.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  For some reason, society sees the ability to perform multiple tasks badly an advantage over performing a single task properly.  If you check out Tim Ferriss’ blog he has an excellent post on multitasking and shows that ‘multitaskers’ get less accomplished than pot smokers… I’m not kidding!  I’m not condoning pot smoking as a study tool but this should show you how horrible multitasking can effect your concentration.

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General Tips for Academic Success: Where’s the “ANY” Key?

June 15, 2009
D,oh, sometimes I'm so concerned with advanced methods, I forget the basics

D,oh, sometimes I'm so concerned with advanced methods, I forget the basics

I’ve unfortunately committed one of the cardinal sins of critical thinking….

I can’t believe I haven’t addressed this earlier but unfortunately I sometimes don’t see the forest for the trees.

I got an email from a student today, she asked me for some ‘general tips for academic success’. I was just about to throw her an email saying “well, uhh… why don’t you just check out the ENTIRE BLOG, WEBSITE and BOOK!

But I then took a look around the blog and realized I haven’t actually given any of you the basic tips for academic success! I suppose I’ve always just thought that anyone who wanted that info should just check out the VTA Method and consult an online tutor. But I want this blog to be a resource for any student, not just ones that have bought my program (although it’s awesome).

So with that in mind I’m going to start a recurring series of the general tips for academic success. Here is what I’m planning on talking about:

General college study tips

Exam study tips

How to study for finals

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The Superman Breakfast!

May 28, 2009

Hello Fellow Students.

I Kinda Like the "Popeye Breakfast" but Meh

I Kinda Like the "Popeye Breakfast" but Meh

 

I got called out for my breakfast choices so I decided today to show you exactly what I eat for breakfast.  It’s good tasting and good for you.  For all you naysayers who think that you don’t have time for breakfast before class, this should shut you all up.  It took me 4 minutes to cook my breakfast on the video and I can usually do it in three.  So I suggest you all try this as an experiment at least for a week and see what kind of chances you see in your mind, body and mood.

The Components of the Superman Breakfast

- Approximately half a dozen egg whites with one full egg for flavor

- Fresh Baby Spinach, prewashed.

- Salsa or Tabbouleh.  Both excellent options.  The Tabbouleh has more nutrients but is higher in fat, the Salsa is lower in nutrients but higher in fat so go your own way with this one

- Crap loads of water

Cost of the Superman Breakfast

The egg whites cost me 3.29 per liter which works out to approximately .65 with the whole egg

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How to stop re-reading books in college

May 12, 2009

Hello fellow students

I have a special video for you today. It’s all about creating an academic database. I’ve used this method for years and it got me through graduate school and now allows me to write up and source an article in a fraction of the time.

I’ve been thinking about putting a post like this together even before I had the blog but I recently read a post at the cal newport blog on research wiki’s and thought it might be useful to show students a more simplified version of the same concept.

Endnote and how to use it

The program I use is endnote. If you’ve read the VTA Method you know I’m a real pusher for endnote as it allows any student to database any kind of academic material for easy referencing and implementation.  What endnote does is get all the demographic information about a source and then databases it for you.  It also automatically creates custom bibliographies which can be customized into any format you choose.

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