[[How has been]]

Friday, November 27, 2015

[[On studying for exams]]

Studying for exams, as with doing any other thing, is not a linear graph of marks/time spent studying. Like what I think I have previously elucidated on factors required for work to be done, it still requires time, energy and motivation. Time and energy as the means and motivation as the intent. That being said, there is an additional dimension towards studying for exams that does not apply for a normal task e.g learning a language.

Basically a person having studied more, will, ceteris paribus, score better than a person that studied less. Nonetheless, every subsequent time unit of study, if known beforehand, offers diminishing marginal returns. What I mean is this - if a person knows he only has 1 hour to study, he will reap more benefit from studying 1 hour than half of what a person studied if he has 2 hours. So on and so forth.

The key point is that this diminishing marginal returns exist the most clearly if it is a planned study. If a person expected to have 2 hours to study and only studied for 1 hour before being violently dragged to the exam hall, he would have probably accomplished exactly half of what he would have if given the full 2 hours which is less than what a person knowing he only has one hour would get.

This is due to low-lying fruits. What are low lying fruits? Low lying fruits are basically the juiciest pieces of knowledge that you can get in the shortest amount of time. Let me put it this way- summarised things are usually low-lying fruits while 'raw' things are higher hanging fruit. Higher hanging fruits will include things like readings,webcasts, past year papers .etc while low lying fruits would include the notes you take during lecture (I presume they exist) and like, your lecturer's powerpoint slides.

The thing is, low lying fruits alone cannot get you a high grade. But sufficient low lying fruits can get you a pass, I guess. There is a kicker that makes the planned thingum important. You cannot do low lying fruits then high hanging fruits. I think. Because low lying fruits always ought to be done last for them to have fuller impact and like, higher retention. Here I assume that you forget things that you studied earlier. If you have photographic memory, feel free to ignore this part.

What is the point of this post? Studying less is still ok, you will do worse, but not linearly worse. Furthermore, it appears that motivation is highest during panic. Panic panic. When you put off studying to the last minute, you only have to study for one minute.

[[I wrote this at]]*|1:37 AM|

Friday, November 20, 2015

[[]]

Papers start tomorrow. Due to my poor time management and lack of priorities and discipline, I am not exactly in the best state I could be academically. Also, a series of unfortunate events.
Ohwell, no worries. It is only exams. And only grades.

[[I wrote this at]]*|8:20 PM|

Saturday, November 7, 2015

[[Theory of time planning]]

Hello there, the angel from...

Anyway, so I have a decent number of topics I to write about saved as drafts. It has been awhile since I have stuff to write about. Not just normal stuff about what I did. More of thoughts. I love writing in this style where nobody can criticise my punctuation. I mean, this is more like storytelling is it not? What is language, if not to tell stories? That was rhetorical.

So anyway, this week has been pretty chill. Like I have been taking it easy. Since I had a reasonable amount of work near the end of last week and start of this week, after the storm had passed, my internal balancing mechanism demanded or, perhaps, politely requested that I make up for it by, yknow, not really doing school-related-presumably-productive-things. So I didn't. I started playing bloons TD 5. Whatever, probably gonna quit it. Such games cant hold attention for long. Besides, no real kick from games nowadays.

I shan't started the third paragraph with 'anyway'. Lol. I wanted to share about my effort to grasp the sands of time as they slip through my fingers. Time still slips. Still, it feels nice.

So the idea is to have big stone things, to block out specific blocks of time to do specific things. Sort of like non-negotiable, important things that all the other concerns of the world will have to flow around. Like a boulder in the middle of a river that parts the unceasing streams of demands. They stand firm, like a solid rock. Let us ignore the erosion. My rock is very durable.

I think this big stone thing has been going reasonably well. The non-negotiables are taken care of. Things that I have set myself to do, especially at specific times, I have been doing

Everything else has to be chucked into the gaps between the big stones. For me, there are significant gaps between the big stones. This partially is intentional, because I need flexibility and like some redundancy to keep as potential. Partly because I am not an important man. Or perhaps, because I have limited important things.

Problem is the next tier of things, the small stones. Reasonably important but not that important. And these are the things that I cannot plan in advance. Things like deadlines. Theoretically, I could block out a piece of time to do work. Perhaps I will do that next sem. I had free days in my past two sems which I used to do that. Now that I have no free days, I am a lot more lax with my time.

Hmmm. Perhaps I ought to be more meticulous in time planning. I cannot leave it to my 'feelings' to determine when I ought to start work. Reason, perhaps, ought to take over. But I am afraid of commitment. I don't like commitment and responsibility, even to myself. Yet in an effort to be a better man, a better follower of Christ, I must...

It is easy to be driven for yourself. Like to work hard for your own 'gain' or glory. Yet that is not what we are called to do/be. 'Feel' is an awful gauge of what ought be done.

[[I wrote this at]]*|2:45 AM|