Alice Mao
Finals season has arrived, and I have wisdom to share to help you ace your exams. Listed below are my five unconventional — yet foolproof — study tricks to manipulate your brain into locking in.
1. Change the Channel
You know how when you have an assignment you really, really don’t want to do, suddenly cleaning your room sounds like a great idea? If you always do the task on your to-do list that feels like the lesser of two evils, this study game might be for you. Open up at least five tabs on your computer, each with a different task you have to do — varying difficulty levels is a must. Use some study tunes if that’s your thing.
Then you start working on one task. When you get bored, stuck or frustrated, switch to a different tab and get started on something else. Repeat until you’ve done a decent chunk of the work on each of the tabs, or until you’ve finished your hardest task. By seamlessly switching what you’re working on, you get a lot of work done while not having to push yourself too hard, and you’re tricking your brain into thinking you’re taking breaks along the way.
2. Mutually Assured Destruction
This trick is perfect for when you and a few friends all have a big project due soon that none of you can seem to bring yourself to start — it’s not great for a day when your to-do list is a mile long.
Here’s what you do. You find two friends — one or three might work, but it’s not ideal — and a quiet place to sit facing each other. Two of you start working, and the third person starts a 20 minute timer, and for 20 minutes, they do whatever they want with their time. After 20 minutes, they start working and the person to their left starts their 20 minutes of free time. And so on.
You get it — everyone gets 40 minutes on, 20 minutes off. All three of you are responsible for policing each other while enjoying your 20 minutes off. No one is cheating and starting their break early like you might if you just do a Pomodoro timer alone in your room. There’s nothing wrong with procrastinating if you make it your friends’ job to force you to work!
3. Pac-Man
This one might seem simple, but I promise it’s psychologically proven. Get a package of a small snack you really like, such as M&Ms or chips, and lay them out on a plate or in a clear bag. Sit down somewhere where you won’t be distracted. Then, start working on a longer project that has clear chunks — split up an essay into writing topic sentences and writing paragraphs, split up a problem set into small pieces, make a list of short emails you have to send, etc. Every time you complete one of the predetermined tasks, give yourself one M&M or one chip. It’s like a mini-reward system. It might sound silly, but I promise, training your brain is just like training a dog — it takes lots of treats.
4. Escape Room
This trick is my go-to for weekdays when I only have a couple of hours to finish a lot of work for the next day. What you’ll need is a small room with a blackboard or a whiteboard — this is absolutely crucial. The little study rooms in the basement of HQ are an excellent place for the Escape Room.
Before you start working, write a list of 10+ tasks you have to do that day — the smaller, the better. An essay outline, a few emails you have to send, the hardest problem in your problem set, organizing your GCal, etc. Sit down facing your bulleted list on the board and just start knocking them off. The catch is, you can’t leave the room until you’ve erased every task from the board, one by one. Good luck escaping that room!
5. Descent into Madness
This trick works really well for weekend days when you have a ton on your plate and a decent chunk of uninterrupted time. I don’t know about you, but looking at an empty GCal on Saturday is somehow more stressful than a full GCal on a Monday. How I address that anxiety is by packing my bag full of snacks, my chargers, my books and a comfy sweatshirt and heading to Sterling Library.
Here’s how the Descent Into Madness works. Make a list of up to 10 tasks of varying lengths — between 20 minutes and an hour — and varying difficulties. Take the elevator up to as high as you can possibly go. Sit down and do one of the tasks on your list. Take the elevator down one floor. Do another one of the tasks on your list. Take the elevator down one floor. Repeat until your list is complete or until you reach the ground floor and can’t descend anymore.
This game tricks your brain into thinking you’re starting a new study session every time you sit down in a new chair on a new floor. Give it a try next time you get the Sunday scaries.
Horizontal variation: Schedule a meeting or buy a sweet treat as far away from your dorm as you can go. Do the Descent Into Madness, but this time, it’s called The Hero’s Journey: on your day-long trip home, stop every block or so and find a cool study spot in a new building. It tricks your brain in the same way, and as a bonus, you might discover your new favorite study lounge or reading room on campus.