Overcoming Semester Fatigue
It is the beginning of the semester. You tell yourselves that this semester will be different than the previous ones. You’ll come to class prepared, do homework early, review class notes, and whatever else it takes to ace your classes. Then suddenly, the workload and responsibilities start piling up and you begin to feel the first signs of fatigue.
We have all been in this position before, and I am not ashamed to say that as midterms creep up, I am also in this predicament right now. We take on a task with a promise to ourselves that we will commit to completing it perfectly. Sooner or later, we burn ourselves out and then we get stuck playing catch up. The million dollar question then is how do we prevent this fatigue so we do not have to rush the end of our assignment? Although I will focus this blog on performing well in school, the advice provided will be applicable to any project.
Don’t go through the motions, benefit from the work. Something that I often find myself doing towards the middle of the semester is doing homework just to get it done. I would find an example similar to the problem I was working on and follow it step by step without thinking about the process. This method gave me the illusion that I was being efficient but all I ended up doing was shooting myself in the foot. By the time I try to study for the exams, I realized that I learned nothing. I did not retain the information I learned during class because I did not practice them. I lost the opportunity to discover which concepts I know and which I don’t; and believe me, you want to know that before an exam. If you are going to take the time to do the homework, you should try to get something out of it since homework in it of itself is not worth much to your overall grade in most cases.
Work smarter, not harder. It can often be hard to distinguish between working hard and working efficiently. I am guilty of studying for numerous hours only to find out that I did not make much progress. So how do I know what is efficient and what isn’t? Well I cannot speak for every major, but I have found out that in STEM related majors, the only way I can learn is by completing as many examples as possible without any help. Completing a problem while constantly referring to an outside source will give you a false sense of understanding so the only way to prepare yourself for an exam is to treat the homework like an exam. If a professor allows for the use of a cheat sheet on an exam, I will only use the equations provided to us on the exam to do my homework. In addition, I urge you to take notes on your homework. I am currently experimenting with using sticky notes to help me. I have two different colors: one color for notes (equations, steps, etc.) and the other for questions. I read somewhere that a small company implements a 15 minute rule. This rule states that if you are stuck on a problem, you must work on it for 15 minutes before asking for help. During those 15 minutes, document all the steps you approached to solving the problem. Also, as soon as those 15 minutes are up, you must ask for help if you were not able to make a breakthrough. This concept is great because it allows you to ask for help after you exhausted your ideas. This prevents going up to the professor and saying “I just don’t know how to do this”.
Good enough is OK. Although being detailed oriented can sometimes be a good thing, often times it is a time waster. It is easy to become a perfectionist on a project but I think meeting deadlines is just as important. If you get lost in trying to make everything perfect, you will take time away from other important tasks. This often leads to rushing a project near the deadlines and possibly skipping on more important tasks. For any project, you should set deadlines for all the major components. Complete the task by the deadlines and if you have extra time go back and refine the details. If you spend too much time staring at a tree, you’re going to miss the forest.
Lastly, but certainly not least, sleep. I am the last person who needs to lecture you on how important sleeping is (as I take a sip of my coffee that I made myself at 4:30 am). We have all been told the health benefits of sleep so there is no reason for me to go over them, as I am no expert. This is definitely an area that I need to work on but it is a key to not burning out.
As I conclude this blog, I would love to know some of your advice on how to prevent that mid-semester fatigue.
“Be happy, but never satisfied” — Bruce Lee
