Two Methods for High Performance

As every 8 weeks, I am once again in exam season. With it has come the need to get on top of my work. To be efficient and organised. I kind of like it. It is always during exams that I get the best workouts in, I tend to get the most sleep and I am most efficient with my learning process. To some extent this could be due to Parkinson’s law — work fills the time allotted to it.

From this week of getting back on track, I have two main points to bring forward:

Firstly, productivity is contagious. Once the ball is rolling, there’s no stopping it. For example, cleaning the dishes right after making food is an activity that makes me a lot more productive. It signals to my brain: “I am getting things done today”. Creating momentum off smaller tasks is a good way to ensure that the bigger tasks will be tackled with more enthusiasm.

Secondly, sleep it off. This Saturday, after my morning classes, I went to play volleyball at the park with a few classmates. This took a solid 3 hours but it was worth it! Spending time with friends is the best rest during exam season. The only downside in this scenario was that I was unable to get back into study mode after it. What I decided to do was to take the evening off. I baked a chocolate cake and went to bed early.  Some days it’s just not the vibe and that’s okay. Sleep it off.

Both of these methods have helped me this past week to hit the hay peacefully. So keep those two ideas in mind: build momentum to tackle bigger tasks and know when to accept defeat.

This Week's Suggestions:

🎶 "Diamond City" by Jaeden Camstra :

During exam season it is always a search for new study playlists. This time around I found some good Lo-Fi tunes. This one caught my ear. The melody gives me the vibe of the roaring twenties, one of the most inspiring eras in my opinion. I find it rather unfortunate that all Lo-Fi songs are seldom longer than two minutes since I really enjoy some of them. Give this one a listen though!

🎧 You're Not Lazy: How To Learn Anything Faster :

I finished this podcast very recently and it gave me a lot of inspiration on how to spend my time. This podcast explores the life of Cliff Weitzman, the founder of Speechify. There are a lot of gems in this conversation – for example something Weitzmann tries to do instead of scrolling the socials is to send gratitude messages to close ones. I really enjoyed this podcast, if you have some time to spare then it is worth your while!

Thank You for Your while!