How I Prepare For Finals

Hello Lovely Human! I have been crazily busy in the last week or so between family drama, school, assignments, NaNoWriMo Prep, and you know looming finals…

So how do I, a royal member of the court of procrastination-a girl who gets bored and distracted so easily that she started cutting her hair in one of her classes-plan for finals in a way that makes sense and is easy to stick to? That is what I am sharing today (but you already knew that because you saw the title.

Book Your Tickets

The first thing I do is transcribe the dates of my papers onto the I to-so list and then into my Google Calendar. I list the paper number, the date, length, subject, number of topics to study and the day.

Then I take the time and some coloured pens or highlighters and go through each individual scope. If I know the topic and well I underline it in green, if I’m shakey I underline it in orange, if I can know it with minimal to moderate revision I underline it in green with an orange asterisk. If I completely don’t understand (or know for a non-concept subject such as history) it gets underlined in red.

Now I have a clear view of what to prioritise and how much time I have to utilise and waste.

Make A Roadmap

Now I need to see what I actually have to prioritise and make sure to priorities those things. Arguably one of the hardest parts of the process as if I had my way I would never study any visual literacy ever.

I look through the dates of my little list, what do I find hardest? Which subjects do I know need a little extra work and which subjects can I get a great mark on?

How many days do I want as revision days to revise, relearn and practice for each paper? Eg. I want a week to revise Algebra but I only want three days or so to revise English. How many days until then and how many topics will I have to learn a day to be ready to review my work by then?

Note: If I have a paper in the last week of exams and I want a week to revise I won’t have to start studying now, I can start in the first or second week of finals. If you want to work like that though, go for it! Make it work for you!

Lay The Foundations

Now that I have all those ambitious dates and deadlines for my papers I try to see if I can give myself time anywhere or if I’m cutting it fine for some papers. I want to make sure that papers that are more towards the middle and end periods of the exams are covered for too, as well as those in the first week.

By now I have a realistic idea of what I need to get done and by when. So I take to my trusted, tried and true, marvellous and amazing Google Calendar and I calendar block studying time for the next few weeks to see where can I make it work for me and still have plenty of time to 1) procrastinate and 2) have time for other commitments and activities.

That is it for my planning process for exams but I still do some

Other Miscellaneous Things

• I make sure that I romanticise things to stay and ger motivates

• I gather* a lot of motivating quotes

• I create playlists

• I bake cookies or pop some popcorn for studying.

• I USE THE BODY DOUBLING TECHNIQUE!

_{*Hoard *cough*}