Look, I know I’m a nerd, but I’m going to let you in on a secret: I’m the world’s worst procrastinator. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever turned in a midnight deadline before 11:58pm. During my first year, I wrote most of my essays the day they were due, fueled by coffee, adrenaline, and contraband Dewies cookies.
If you’re thinking, “Why don’t you just start earlier?” two things:. One, you sound like my mom. Two, I’ve tried everything to be organized. My desk is littered with discarded schedules and planners. They work for some people; they don’t work for me.
Since my first year, I’ve gotten better at studying, but I learned most of it the hard way. So, here are a couple of study methods you might not find online that I use religiously.
1. Get Out of your Room
Your dorm is full of distractions and nobody to keep you honest. Get out of it. There are plenty of good spaces to study on-campus. My go-to is the Sportsplex, but you’ll also find me in the quiet section of the Library Learning Commons during exam week or the Morris common room to read. If you don’t like these, get creative! During first year, I snuck books or notebooks into Dewies to knock out some homework while I ate lunch. If you feel cooped up on campus, I can also recommend Farro café (great for chai and people-watching), or Sushi Crêpe Coffee Shop, which has a peaceful ambience and cheaper coffee.
This year, I also realized I work better when I’m moving around. I find audiobooks of my readings and listen to them while I get groceries, clean my room, or do laundry. Ripped-out notebook pages taped to kitchen cupboards help me review definitions while cooking—though my roommates look concerned. I occasionally bring a book to the gym and read on the treadmill. Moving around keeps my hands busy and my brain focused. It also integrates coursework into my daily routines, which makes starting homework feel a lot easier to me.
2. Get the Topic in your Head
This is honestly my best tip: Get a friend to quiz you before you start studying for a test. Don’t prepare. The friend doesn’t need to know the material: let them open your notes and ask you questions, and be okay with most of your answers being “I don’t know”. When I’m short on time, this method tells me what to study and, as importantly, what not to study. I’m often surprised by which theories I have trouble actively recalling or which definitions I can rattle off without reviewing. This takes less than half an hour, and I do it before every test.
3. Call your Mom!
I’m an English major, which means I write way too many essays (always inconveniently due in the same week at end-of-term). If you have trouble starting writing assignments early (like me), my advice is to grasp onto a thesis idea and then get it into your head at least a week before the paper is due.
Personally, I like to call my mom and bounce ideas off of her. She half-listens while cooking dinner; I clean my room. I explain and re-explain my thesis until it’s clear and simple. When I hit snags, I rework my arguments until everything makes sense in my head. If calling someone doesn’t work, talk out loud. Force yourself to articulate your thoughts clearly. Even if you procrastinate the writing itself, it’s much easier to write a paper on the due date if the argument is laid out clearly in your head.
4. Friends are Made to be Used
When deadlines get tighter, I turn to friends to keep me on track. I lived in Munster Residence in my first year, and the study rooms became my second home. Once, I spent an entire day (upwards of fifteen hours) writing a paper while my friend worked on her chemistry lab. She would periodically disappear and pop back in with stolen Dewies bagels. I typed furiously and submitted the paper three seconds before the deadline.
While I can’t recommend eating a plain white bagel for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I would not have turned in that paper on time if I didn’t have a friend to keep me honest.
5. Violence is Sometimes the Answer
Last spring, the week before a major research paper was due (that I hadn’t started), I told my roommate to throw something at me every time she noticed me watching Downton Abbey. By the fifth time I got hit with a notepad or highlighter, I was focused enough to keep myself on track. In turn, I would occasionally launch a pillow at her when I heard Vampire Diaries playing on her laptop instead of chemistry lectures. Halfway through the semester, we each agreed to hit the other with a pillow if we didn’t get up for our early-morning calculus lecture—neither of us missed a class for the rest of the semester.
If violence doesn’t appeal to you, suit yourself. My point is, use your friends! Don’t feel silly asking someone to keep you on track—nobody gets through a degree alone.
Inevitably, you’ll have to go through some trial-and-error until you find what works for you. But in my first year, I wasted a ton of time telling myself, “Just start earlier!” without making any other modifications to my work habits. When I started using some of these tricks, I stopped trying to overcome procrastination through sheer willpower, and I realized that all I needed to do was to change the way I approached studying.
Sometimes, I even submit assignments before 11:58.
