How to get down to studying when you don’t really want to!

Common now, let`s be serious! How many students out there can actually say they looking forward to studying.
Here is a familiar scenario.

Four friends gathered at one of their houses just prior to their exams. First friend said, “Right now I am really hungry and there is this cool new place that opened just around the corner, we have to go and try it out!” The second friend said, “you guys told me to bring my new PS game along, you guys wanted to check it out, here it is, this game has got everybody hooked, we can`t be missing out!” The third friend said, “Are you guys forgetting we have a really important exam in two days’ time, we have to get down to studying immediately, otherwise we all going to fail!” The fourth guy pulls out a coin, “Heads we go and eat, tails we stay and play games,”……… and they look at each other and blurt out “and if the coin lands on the edge and stays like that, we can study!”

We all know what the chances are of the third option, but this is just the reality, we all or at least most of us delay our studying until the last minute.

For most of us, the experience of studying for an exam can be captured in one word: panic. You’ve got 18 hours, exhausted, and sitting there staring at an equations sheet full of gibberish. Why? Why didn’t I start earlier?

Believe it or not, there are forces acting against you, pulling you away from starting early enough so that you can comfortably learn new material.

One reason why we do this is because we anticipating hard work! Remember hard work never killed anyone.

Procrastination is generally viewed as this guilt-ridden character defect shared almost universally by all students. The problem is, this is exactly what we should expect to happen to all of us.

Humans are known to be cognitive misers: we conserve mental resources whenever possible, especially when facing tasks not viewed as “essential to our survival.”

In other words, we put off studying until the last minute because:
1. we know the work is hard and will require a lot of mental energy, and
2. until there’s the threat of actually failing the exam (and therefore potentially being humiliated publicly) we’re not in enough emotional pain to motivate us to start studying.

The reality is studying is not really a choice. If you don’t do it properly and on time, you still going to have to do it but in a really rushed manner and with your mind totally unfocused and unprepared.

Remember it`s better to study one hour for seven days than to study seven hours in one day. Don’t believe it! Would you rather eat a decent healthy meal for seven days or seven meals one shot in one day, if your stomach can`t handle it, than neither can your brain!