Academia 5: Holiday Productivity

-
Hello my beautiful friends!

This week I am on my half term holiday similar to many other schools and Sixth Forms in the UK. This is a one (or two) week break from school/Sixth Form. For those in year 11 and year 13 (and some year 12s) this is the most important holiday for revision, aside from the Easter Holiday. This half term is an opportunity to begin hardcore revision for GCSE, AS or A-Level exams. In this post I will offer some tips and advice regarding how to stay productive and motivated.

Tip 1: Make a revision timetable.
Revision timetables act as motivation because you strive to achieve everything on your timetable! My next blog post will go into the detail of revision timetables. 
I used the following revision timetable during my Year 11 Christmas Holiday. I made this timetable on Excel.
Tip 2: TURN OFF YOUR PHONE!
This is the BIGGEST revision tip in any circumstance. Quality of revision is more essential than quantity of revision and your phone will act as a distraction, which will reduce revision quality. If you cannot trust yourself to ignore your phone during a study session, give your phone to a trusted adult, sibling or friend whilst you are revising.

Tip 3: Remove distractions.
Obviously, being distracted reduces the quality of your revision, so try studying in a silent location. If noise is inevitable, try listening to music without lyrics or white noise to reduce the impact of this noise on your revision.

Tip 4: Break.
Another essential component of revision quality is taking breaks because your brain cannot concentrate well for long periods of time. The regularity and duration of breaks will vary for different people, so do not feel guilty for taking more and longer breaks than other people. I recommend going outside for a walk or doing exercise during your break because this is really refreshing. When revising, I enjoy going for a jog during one of my breaks.

Tip 5: Sleep.
Try to sleep for at least 8 hours every night. My biggest tip for improving sleep is to not use your phone or use you phone on Night Shift mode for an hour before you go to bed. Being well-rested increases your revision quality and allows you to be more productive.

I hope these tips help you to improve your motivation and productivity during this holiday and any other holidays. Feel free to share your own holiday revision tips in the comments!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Academia 33: University of Birmingham Offer-Holder Day

-
Image
Hello my beautiful friends! Once you have received an offer from a university, you may be invited to an offer-holder day. This is similar to an open day, but is accessible to offer-holders only. I attended an offer-holder day at the University of Birmingham and have decided to give a review about it. What did I do? Was it a worthwhile event? Did it change my perspective on the university? I hope to answer these questions and more in order to advise you about offer-holder days. I attended this offer-holder day with my mum. To begin the day, we were provided with refreshments (the university was very hospitable, as you will find out later in this post) and able to talk to students & staff about the university. Following this, I was split up with my mum because the parents had a separate itinerary. I attended three talks, which lasted a total of 40 minutes altogether. The talks covered the course, teaching, student life (this talk was presented by current students) and ind...
Read more

Academia 32: My UCAS Experience

-
Hello my beautiful friends! I have decided to write a diary-style blog post about my UCAS experience. When I was starting Year 12, I remember feeling daunted by the UCAS process and unsure about what to expect. Eve Bennett, a revision Youtuber, uploaded a diary-style video about her UCAS experience, which was very helpful. Similarly, I hope to help some of you through this blog post about my own experience. 02/07/18 Today I started my UCAS application (I had a UCAS day at sixth form)! I filled in all of the relevant forms and completed the first draft of my personal statement. It was not as daunting as I thought it would be and the form itself did not take long to fill out... I'd advise that you do a few supercurricular activities to ensure you have subject-relevant things to write about on your personal statement (this makes the process so much easier). 26/09/18 There is a slight gap between my last entry and this one. During this time, I have redrafted my personal state...
Read more

Academia 24: Staying Productive in Sixth Form

-
Hello my beautiful friends! This blog post was requested from my Instagram story and I thought it'd be useful for those starting Year 12. Recently, I participated in a collab with other Year 13 Studygrammers called #howtoalevel in which we shared our tips for new Year 12s, so I thought it'd be fitting to repeat that Instagram post in blog post form. Here are my top 10 tips for those starting Year 12... 1. Relax during the summer between Y11 & Y12. Some Sixth Forms/colleges set bridging work, so do complete this, but do not do any additional work to avoid burning out in Y12. 2. Make your notes as you go along. After every lesson, write up your class notes onto flash cards/mind maps/whatever resource you use to revise. 3. Use a variety of sources to make your notes. As well as using your class notes, use your textbook/revision guide and/or reliable websites to ensure your notes are sufficient and cover everything. (Feel free to ask me for Physics and Economics we...
Read more