Leave of Absence and the Absence of Sleep

Hello everybody!

We are now well into May so I expect many of you will be busy with your exams and revision. The bad news it doesn’t stop when you get to University I’m afraid.  It has been a very busy couple of weeks as I have had two deadlines. My one and only exam (yes, I’m sure you are now all jealous!) was last week. An exam I ‘didn’t had time’ to revise for.

Everyone has their own set of top tips. So, here is my top tips for Deadlines and exams:

1. Sleep (as hypocritical as this will sound given I just pulled an all nighter). Sleep is very important. Staying up all night is never worth it. Your ability to think degrades as does your spelling, grammer and fluency. If you need the extra hours work, have a nap!

You have to pull an all nighter sometimes though when you fail at point 2.

2. Organisation. Set yourself a deadline one or two days  in advance of the actual deadline and work to that. This means you will always have a day in hand to deal with all those inevitable computer crashes and printer breakdowns. In terms of revision, try and start 3 weeks before an exam. If your exams are close together, start revision for the last one first so when you have to break off to revise the first, you are not left with only a day to do all the revision for one topic.

No one can work all the time and it isn’t good to try.

3. Have a break. Though it might seem odd to suggest more work gets done if you spend less hours working it is true. Having a break will reset your brain and make it work better when it comes back to the desk. Doing some sort of physical activity even if it is just a walk to the shops is brilliant. If you can’t get out of the house because your stack of books has barricaded the door shut, do something different By which I mean if you are working by reading books, don’t read Harry Potter to relax.

Which leads me to 4.

4. Change location. Spice up your work life by occassionally swapping rooms to work in! After dinner, my flatmates and I often sit in the lounge in silence and all work. We don’t distract each other but the change of scene helps us concentrate.

Speaking of dinner

5. Eat healthily! Ignore the temptation to snack on crisps and biscuits. Eating an apple will give you sugar too for that boost but makes you feel much better. This is related to drinking healthily too: drinking a lot of water will keep you rehydrated and make that big squishy, mostly water brain of yours retain more information (like a sponge!)

Follow theses tips and you should never end up pulling an all nighter (ahem…) or not ‘having time’ to revise because your new-found organisational abilities will make you start several weeks in advance!