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camilleclores-blog1 · 7 years ago

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How to Study Like a Harvard Student

Taken from Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, daughter of the Tiger Mother

Preliminary Steps 1. Choose classes that interest you. That way studying doesn’t feel like slave labor. If you don’t want to learn, then I can’t help you. 2. Make some friends. See steps 12, 13, 23, 24. General Principles 3. Study less, but study better. 4. Avoid Autopilot Brain at all costs. 5. Vague is bad. Vague is a waste of your time. 6. Write it down. 7. Suck it up, buckle down, get it done. Plan of Attack Phase I: Class 8. Show up. Everything will make a lot more sense that way, and you will save yourself a lot of time in the long run. 9. Take notes by hand. I don’t know the science behind it, but doing anything by hand is a way of carving it into your memory. Also, if you get bored you will doodle, which is still a thousand times better than ending up on stumbleupon or something. Phase II: Study Time 10. Get out of the library. The sheer fact of being in a library doesn’t fill you with knowledge. Eight hours of Facebooking in the library is still eight hours of Facebooking. Also, people who bring food and blankets to the library and just stay there during finals week start to smell weird. Go home and bathe. You can quiz yourself while you wash your hair. 11. Do a little every day, but don’t let it be your whole day. “This afternoon, I will read a chapter of something and do half a problem set. Then, I will watch an episode of South Park and go to the gym” ALWAYS BEATS “Starting right now, I am going to read as much as I possibly can…oh wow, now it’s midnight, I’m on page five, and my room reeks of ramen and dysfunction.” 12. Give yourself incentive. There’s nothing worse than a gaping abyss of study time. If you know you’re going out in six hours, you’re more likely to get something done. 13. Allow friends to confiscate your phone when they catch you playing Angry Birds. Oh and if you think you need a break, you probably don’t. Phase III: Assignments 14. Stop highlighting. Underlining is supposed to keep you focused, but it’s actually a one-way ticket to Autopilot Brain. You zone out, look down, and suddenly you have five pages of neon green that you don’t remember reading. Write notes in the margins instead. 15. Do all your own work. You get nothing out of copying a problem set. It’s also shady. 16. Read as much as you can. No way around it. Stop trying to cheat with Sparknotes. 17. Be a smart reader, not a robot (lol). Ask yourself: What is the author trying to prove? What is the logical progression of the argument? You can usually answer these questions by reading the introduction and conclusion of every chapter. Then, pick any two examples/anecdotes and commit them to memory (write them down). They will help you reconstruct the author’s argument later on. 18. Don’t read everything, but understand everything that you read. Better to have a deep understanding of a limited amount of material, than to have a vague understanding of an entire course. Once again: Vague is bad. Vague is a waste of your time. 19. Bullet points. For essays, summarizing, everything. Phase IV: Reading Period (Review Week) 20. Once again: do not move into the library. Eat, sleep, and bathe. 21. If you don’t understand it, it will definitely be on the exam. Solution: textbooks; the internet. 22. Do all the practice problems. This one is totally tiger mom. 23. People are often contemptuous of rote learning. Newsflash: even at great intellectual bastions like Harvard, you will be required to memorize formulas, names and dates. To memorize effectively: stop reading your list over and over again. It doesn’t work. Say it out loud, write it down. Remember how you made friends? Have them quiz you, then return the favor. 24. Again with the friends: ask them to listen while you explain a difficult concept to them. This forces you to articulate your understanding. Remember, vague is bad. 25. Go for the big picture. Try to figure out where a specific concept fits into the course as a whole. This will help you tap into Big Themes – every class has Big Themes – which will streamline what you need to know. You can learn a million facts, but until you understand how they fit together, you’re missing the point. Phase V: Exam Day 26. Crush exam. Get A.

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camilleclores-blog1 · 7 years ago

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Hey babes! As requested, here’s a roundup of my favorite study tips that I’ve picked up over the years. Happy studying!

studying for exams

Create a study group and meet regularly (not just before exams!)

“Teach” the material to someone – your pet works well!

Keep a list in the front of your notebook/binder of topics or points that seem important enough to be on the exam, that confuse you, or that you’re interested in so you can go back and study them.

Study a little over a long period when you can, instead of cramming for an entire exam in one night.

Create a “cheat sheet” of important information for studying on the go.

Try the Pomodoro method to keep from getting burnt out.

Try creating a timetable for studying so you don’t spend too long on a certain subject and run out of time for the others.

Knock out your least favorite subject first, so you can have the rest of the day to work on more enjoyable subjects and relax.

Create a study guide for the class using Google Docs that you can all contribute to.

If you’re unclear about something, Google it. There’s more than likely a video that can explain it more clearly than your textbook.

Keep a running list of questions to ask during office hours, & actually go!

Study in a public place (the library, a coffee shop) so that you’re less likely to get distracted watching cat videos knowing people can see what you’re doing.

Get plenty of rest the night before an exam! Cramming is not worth it.

homework tips

Write everything down, even if you think you’ll remember it.

Keep a planner and check it first thing in the morning.

Do the work for your least favorite class first so that it’s out of the way.

Start early. Way earlier than you have to. That way you have time for delays, to start over if you have to, or to take a night off to go to a party.

If it’s something quick, like a worksheet, do it as soon as it’s assigned.

If you have a long break between classes, use it to work on small assignments that you can get out of the way.

For big projects, like papers and presentations, break it up into smaller pieces. “Write thesis” is a lot less daunting than “write 8 page paper”.

Do homework before you study, so you’ll know what you’re confused about and need to pay more attention to.

If there’s an option to buy an ebook rather than a physical copy of the textbook, do it. Not only is it usually cheaper, but it frees up space in your bag and you can search for specific terms easily.

If you have a lot of work to catch up on, set aside a block of time to knock it all out at once (with breaks, of course).

If all the homework for a class is due at the end of the semester, give yourself due dates for the individual assignments so you don’t put it off and have to do it all at once.

Install a site blocker so you don’t get distracted from your work.

If you have an online class, schedule a regular time to work on it as if it were a traditional class.

Don’t just Google your way through the homework! It may save time now, but it’ll only make things harder when it’s time for exams.

even more tips!!

More Study Tips

Time Management

Intensive Revision (Cramming)

Public Speaking

Writing Papers Quickly

Study Habits

Final Exams

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camilleclores-blog1 · 7 years ago

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I needed this.

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camilleclores-blog1 · 7 years ago

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SOURCES + LINKS

Dr. Bradberry, Travis. (January 15, 2018). “How to make yourself work when you don’t want to.” Retrieved from: https://medium.com/the-mission/how-to-make-yourself-work-when-you-dont-want-to-f4f251a85514

MacLellan, Lila. (January 15, 2018). “How to stop procrastinating.” Retrieved from: https://work.qz.com/1159212/how-to-stop-procrastinating/

Sun, Michael. (February 17, 2014). “Psychological Skills: Changing your Emotions - An Intro to Cognitive Reappraisal.” Retrieved from: https://www.psychologyinaction.org/psychology-in-action-1/2014/02/17/psychological-skills-changing-your-emotions-an-intro-to-cognitive-reappraisal

My masterposts, infographics, printables, + more!

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camilleclores-blog1 · 7 years ago

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42 Practical Ways To Improve Yourself

Books are concentrated sources of wisdom. The more books you read, the more wisdom you expose yourself to. What are some books you can start reading to enrich yourself? Some books I’ve read and found useful are Think and Grow Rich, Who Moved My Cheese, 7 Habits, The Science of Getting Rich and Living the 80/20 Way. I’ve heard positive reviews for The Tipping Point, Outliers and The Difference Maker, so I’ll be checking them out soon.

Learn a new language.As a Singaporean Chinese, my main languages are English, Mandarin and Hokkien (a Chinese dialect). Out of interest, I took up language courses in the past few years such as Japanese and Bahasa Indonesian. I realized learning a language is a whole new skill altogether and the process of acquainting with a new language and culture is a totally a mind-opening experience.

Pick up a new hobby. Beyond just your usual favorite hobbies, is there something new you can pick up? Any new sport you can learn? Examples are fencing, golf, rock climbing, football, canoeing, or ice skating. Your new hobby can also be a recreational hobby. For example, pottery, Italian cooking, dancing, wine appreciation, web design, etc. Learning something new requires you to stretch yourself in different aspects, whether physically, mentally or emotionally.

Take up a new course. Is there any new course you can join? Courses are a great way to gain new knowledge and skills. It doesn’t have to be a long-term course – seminars or workshops serve their purpose too. I’ve been to a few workshops and they have helped me gain new insights which I had not considered before.

Create an inspirational room. Your environment sets the mood and tone for you. If you are living in an inspirational environment, you are going to be inspired every day. In the past, I didn’t like my room at all because I thought it was messy and dull. A few years ago, I decided this was the end of it – I started on a “Mega Room Revamp” project and overhauled my room. The end result? A room I totally relish being in and inspires me to be at my peak every day.

Overcome your fears. All of us have fears. Fear of uncertainty, fear of public speaking, fear of risk… All our fears keep us in the same position and prevent us from growing. Recognize that your fears reflect areas where you can grow. I always think of fears as the compass for growth. If I have a fear about something, it represents something I’ve yet to address, and addressing it helps me to grow.

Level up your skills. If you have played video games before especially RPGs, you’ll know the concept of leveling up – gaining experience so you can be better and stronger. As a blogger, I’m constantly leveling up my writing skills. As a speaker, I’m constantly leveling up my public engagement abilities. What skills can you level up?

Wake up early. Waking up early (say, 5-6am) has been acknowledged by many (Anthony Robbins, Robin Sharma, among other self-help gurus) to improve your productivity and your quality of life. I feel it’s because when you wake up early, your mindset is already set to continue the momentum and proactively live out the day. Seth recently wrote a waking up early series which you should check out to help cultivate this habit.

Have a weekly exercise routine. A better you starts with being in better physical shape. I personally make it a point to jog at least 3 times a week, at least 30 minutes each time. You may want to mix it up with jogging, gym lessons and swimming for variation.

Start your life handbook. A life handbook is an idea I started 3 years ago. Basically, it’s a book which contains the essentials on how you can live your life to the fullest, such as your purpose, your values and goals. Sort of like your manual for your life. I started my life handbook since 2007 and it’s been a crucial enabler in my progress.

Write a letter to your future self. What do you see yourself as 5 years from now? Will you be the same? Different? What kind of person will you be? Write a letter to your future self – 1 year from now will be a good start – and seal it. Make a date in your calendar to open it 1 year from now. Then start working to become the person you want to open that letter.

Get out of your comfort zone. Real growth comes with hard work and sweat. Being too comfortable doesn’t help us grow – it makes us stagnate. What is your comfort zone? Do you stay in most of the time? Do you keep to your own space when out with other people? Shake your routine up. Do something different. By exposing yourself to a new context, you’re literally growing as you learn to act in new circumstances.

Put someone up to a challenge. Competition is one of the best ways to grow. Set a challenge (weight loss, exercise, financial challenge, etc) and compete with an interested friend to see who achieves the target first. Through the process, both of you will gain more than if you were to set off on the target alone.

Identify your blind spots. Scientifically, blind spots refer to areas our eyes are not capable of seeing. In personal development terms, blind spots are things about ourselves we are unaware of. Discovering our blind spots help us discover our areas of improvement. One exercise I use to discover my blind spots is to identify all the things/events/people that trigger me in a day – trigger meaning making me feel annoyed/weird/affected. These represent my blind spots. It’s always fun to do the exercise because I discover new things about myself, even if I may already think I know my own blind spots (but then they wouldn’t be blind spots would they?). After that, I work on steps to address them.

Ask for feedback. As much as we try to improve, we will always have blind spots. Asking for feedback gives us an additional perspective. Some people to approach will be friends, family, colleagues, boss, or even acquaintances, since they will have no preset bias and can give their feedback objectively.

Stay focused with to-do lists. I start my day with a list of tasks I want to complete and this helps make me stay focused. In comparison, the days when I don’t do this end up being extremely unproductive. For example, part of my to-do list for today is to write a guest post atLifeHack.Org, and this is why I’m writing this now! Since my work requires me to use my computer all the time, I use Free Sticky Notes to manage my to-do lists. It’s really simple to use and it’s a freeware, so I recommend you check it out.

Set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs). I’m a big fan of setting BHAGs. BHAGs stretch you beyond your normal capacity since they are big and audacious – you wouldn’t think of attempting them normally. What are BHAGs you can embark on, which you’ll feel absolutely on top of the world once you complete them? Set them and start working on them.

Acknowledge your flaws. Everyone has flaws. What’s most important is to understand them, acknowledge them, and address them. What do you think are your flaws? What are the flaws you can work on now? How do you want to address them?

Get into action. The best way to learn and improve is to take action. What is something you have been meaning to do? How can you take action on it immediately? Waiting doesn’t get anything done. Taking action gives you immediate results to learn from.

Learn from people who inspire you. Think about people you admire. People who inspire you. These people reflect certain qualities you want to have for yourself too. What are the qualities in them you want to have for yourself? How can you acquire these qualities?

Quit a bad habit. Are there any bad habits you can lose? Oversleeping? Not exercising? Being late? Slouching? Nail biting? Smoking? Here’s some help on how you can quit a bad habit.

Cultivate a new habit. Some good new habits to cultivate include reading books (#1), waking up early (#8), exercising (#9), reading a new personal development article a day (#40) and meditating. Is there any other new habit you can cultivate to improve yourself?

Avoid negative people. As Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”. Wherever we go, there are bound to be negative people. Don’t spend too much of your time around them if you feel they drag you down.

Learn to deal with difficult people. There are times when there are difficult people you can’t avoid, such as at your workplace, or when the person is part of your inner circle of contacts. Learn how to deal with them. These people management skills will go a long way in working with people in the future.

Learn from your friends. Everyone has amazing qualities in them. It’s up to how we want to tap into them. With all the friends who surround you, they are going to have things you can learn from. Try thinking of a good friend right now. Think about just one quality they have which you want to adopt. How can you learn from them and adopt this skill for yourself? Speak to them if you need to – for sure, they will be more than happy to help!

Start a journal. Journaling is a great way to gain better self-awareness. It’s a self-reflection process. As you write, clarify your thought process and read what you wrote from a third person’s perspective, you gain more insights about yourself. Your journal can be private or an online blog. I use my personal development blog as a personal journal too and I’ve learned a lot about myself through the past year of blogging.

Start a blog about personal development. To help others grow, you need to first be walking the talk. There are expectations of you, both from yourself and from others, which you have to uphold. I run The Personal Excellence Blog, where I share my personal journey and insights on how to live a better life. Readers look toward my articles to improve themselves, which enforces to me that I need to keep improving, for myself and for the people I’m reaching out to.

Get a mentor or coach. There’s no faster way to improve than to have someone work with you on your goals. Many of my clients approach me to coach them in their goals and they achieve significantly more results than if they had worked alone.

Reduce the time you spend on chat programs. I realized having chat programs open at default result in a lot of wasted time. This time can be much better spent on other activities. The days when I don’t get on chat, I get a lot more done. I usually disable the auto start-up option in the chat programs and launch them when I do want to chat and really have the time for it.

Learn chess (or any strategy game). I found chess is a terrific game to learn strategy and hone your brainpower. Not only do you have fun, you also get to exercise your analytical skills. You can also learn strategy from other board games or computer games, such as Othello, Chinese Chess, WarCraft, and so on.

Stop watching TV. I’ve not been watching TV for pretty much 4 years and it’s been a very liberating experience. I realized most of the programs and advertisements on mainstream TV are usually of a lower consciousness and not very empowering. In return, the time I’ve freed up from not watching TV is now constructively used for other purposes, such as connecting with close friends, doing work I enjoy, exercising, etc.

Start a 30-day challenge. Set a goal and give yourself 30 days to achieve this. Your goal can be to stick with a new habit or something you’ve always wanted to do but have not. 30 days is just enough time to strategize, plan, get into action, review and nail the goal.

Meditate. Meditation helps to calm you and be more conscious. I also realized that during the nights when I meditate (before I sleep), I need lesser sleep. The clutter clearing process is very liberating.

Join Toastmasters (Learn public speaking). Interestingly, public speaking is the #1 fear in the world, with #2 being death. After I started public speaking as a personal development speaker/trainer, I’ve learned a lot about how to communicate better, present myself and engage people. Toastmasters is an international organization that trains people in public speaking. Check out the Toastmaster clubs nearest to you here.

Befriend top people in their fields. These people have achieved their results because they have the right attitudes, skill sets and know-how. How better to learn than from the people who have been there and done that? Gain new insights from them on how you can improve and achieve the same results for yourself.

Let go of the past. Is there any grievance or unhappiness from the past which you have been holding on? If so, it’s time to let it go. Holding on to them prevents you from moving on and becoming a better person. Break away from the past, forgive yourself, and move on. Just recently, I finally moved on from a past heartbreak of 5 years ago. The effect was liberating and very empowering, and I have never been happier.

Start a business venture. Is there anything you have an interest in? Why not turn it into a venture and make money while learning at the same time? Starting a new venture requires you to be learn business management skills, develop business acumen and have a competitive edge. The process of starting and developing my personal development business has equipped me with many skills, such as self-discipline, leadership, organization and management.

Show kindness to people around you. You can never be too kind to someone. In fact, most of us don’t show enough kindness to people around us. Being kind helps us to cultivate other qualities such as compassion, patience, and love. As you get back to your day after reading this article later on, start exuding more kindness to the people around you, and see how they react. Not only that, notice how you feel as you behave kindly to others. Chances are, you will feel even better than yourself.

Reach out to the people who hate you. If you ever stand for something, you are going to get haters. It’s easy to hate the people who hate us. It’s much more challenging to love them back. Being able to forgive, let go and show love to these people requires magnanimity and an open heart. Is there anyone who dislikes or hates you in your life? If so, reach out to them. Show them love. Seek a resolution and get closure on past grievances. Even if they refuses to reciprocate, love them all the same. It’s much more liberating than to hate them back.

Take a break. Have you been working too hard? Self-improvement is also about recognizing our need to take a break to walk the longer mile ahead. You can’t be driving a car if it has no petrol. Take some time off for yourself every week. Relax, rejuvenate and charge yourself up for what’s up ahead.

Read at least 1 personal development article a day. Some of my readers make it a point to read at least one personal development article every day, which I think is a great habit. There are many terrific personal development blogs out there, some of which you can check here.

Commit to your personal growth. I can be writing list articles with 10 ways, 25 ways, 42 ways or even 1,000 ways to improve yourself, but if you’ve no intention to commit to your personal growth, it doesn’t matter what I write. Nothing is going to get through. We are responsible for our personal growth – not anyone else. Not your mom, your dad, your friend, me or LifeHack. Make the decision to commit to your personal growth and embrace yourself to a life-long journey of growth and change. Kick off your growth by picking a few of the steps above and working on them. The results may not be immediate, but I promise you that as long as you keep to it, you’ll start seeing positive changes in yourself and your life.

42 Practical Ways To Improve Yourself

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camilleclores-blog1 · 7 years ago

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2018 Student Guide

With the start of 2018 well underway, I wanted to make a masterpost full of links on how to adjust your perspective with studying. Perhaps you want to become a better student overall, improve your focus or get into your dream college, there is always something we want to do better! Hopefully these tips will make 2018 your best academic year yet!

Organisation

2018 student planner

planner brand recommendations

planner vs bullet journal: pros and cons

how to set up a bullet journal

setting up a digital bullet journal

bullet journal spread ideas

bullet journal decoration hacks

bullet journal brand recommendations

whats in my bag

my favourite stationery

back to school basic supplies

how to improve your handwriting

handwriting font suggestions

balancing study and work

desk/workspace essentials

student finance tips

2018 monthly planner printables

Productivity

productivity and time management applications

how to remove distractions

types of procrastination and how to deal with them

google chrome new tab options for improved productivity

10 small ways to improve your productivity

applications to block websites

no distraction writing applications

100 days of productivity challenge

how to focus in class

how to stick to a schedule

how to stay alert

how to build self-discipline

how to organise for exams

my after school routine

how to reduce perfectionist ideas

Motivation

what to do when you’ve tried everything

how to gain back motivation

motivational monday printables

how to stop avoiding studying

what to do when you feel exhausted before studying

how I stay motivated

tips on maintaining motivation

how to start a studyblr

how to utilise your studyblr for motivation

how to set up a studygram

dealing with competitive people

how to bounce back from ‘failure’

how to learn from a lower than expected grade

how to structure a weekly review

how to deal with a difficult class

things to do during holidays/study vacations

Studying

applications for students

how to take effective class or lecture notes

how to take notes from a textbook

how to prepare for exams

my note-taking method

my notebook system

how to write faster

how to study more effectively

how to summarise information

how I organise my binders

good habits to implement

how to study (my method)

how to revise from notes

how to organise a colour code

how to memorise information effectively

how to memorise quotes

how to use flashcards

how I reduce waffle and narration in essays

tips for essay writing

how to find out where you’re going wrong

how I prepare to study

different ways to study

how to study during the semester

how to annotate a book/novel/etc

how to get ahead in school

how to break up a large textbook

studying as a visual learner

how to practice and present a speech

mindmapping apps and extensions

how to deal with online classes

how to study a language

how to study maths

how to improve group assessments/projects

Self Care

how to improve your sleep schedule

how to wake up earlier

how to study when sick

over-coming self doubt

dealing with stress

how to balance studying and anxiety

how to balance studying and depression

apps that help with depression

ways to reward your productivity

my favourite tv shows

my favourite podcasts

ways to use empty notebooks

how to be more sociable

tips for getting a job

advice for the first day

things (personal, academic, etc) to do every week

Printables

2018 monthly planner printables

2018 student printables (includes 2018 overview + calendar, daily + weekly + monthly planner, 30 habit tracker, class overview and timed worklog)

weekly study schedule

weekly planner

weekend planner

daily planner

assessment planner

subject to do list planner

study session planner

exam revision printable pack (includes revision checklist, formulas + definitions sheet, essay + project planner, weekly schedule)

note-taking printables (includes dotted, grid, lined, cornell method)

organic chemistry printable

literary techniques and devices sheet

100 days of productivity tracker printable

ultimate student organiser pack

study and revision pack

2018 student planner

2018 weekly planner

pomodoro tracker

grade and assessment planner pack

essay guide and planner pack

productivity planner

student reading journal printable

student finance planner

goal and habit planner

customisable weekly study planner

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camilleclores-blog1 · 8 years ago

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in a world where you can be anything, be kind

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camilleclores-blog1 · 8 years ago

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Five to ten minutes per day on a difficult task is always better than zero minutes per day. You don’t have to finish, you just have to start.

Pretend that school is a real job. For instance, pretend that lectures/discussions are your meetings with colleagues and that your homework is work you are being paid to do.

Always prioritize your health, your family, and your grades over extracurriculars. You only have one body, one family, and one chance to earn your GPA. You will have the rest of your life to add experiences to your resume.

Spend at least 1-2 hours per day doing absolutely nothing “productive”. This will increase your productivity overall. Trust me. Your brain needs time to feel like mush.

Watch Netflix/Youtube while you work out. It will make your work out more pleasant and it will free up more of your chill time for other things like self care, extra sleep, reading, etc.

Go through all of your social media accounts and unfollow anyone who you do not genuinely enjoy receiving updates from. It will reduce the time you spend scrolling and it will make your social media experience better.

Be honest with yourself when you feel like you are overextending yourself. You may feel bad about letting go of some commitments, but if you know you need to reduce your workload, others will understand.

Take 5-10 minute walks during your study breaks. It refreshes your mind, reenergizes your body, and prevents the negative effects of sitting for too long. You can even walk with your study partner to make it more fun.

During periods of time when your schedule is especially busy or when you are experiencing depression, use habit trackers for simple tasks like eating breakfast, flossing, making your bed, etc. It’s easy to let go of basic daily habits during periods of heightened stress so tracking them can help you take care of yourself.

Don’t compare yourself to anyone but yourself. Everyone is on their own unique journey, timeline, and life path. You know where you’re going and what you need to do to get there.

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camilleclores-blog1 · 8 years ago

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How To Make 2018 Your Year.

Make Peace With 2017

Take time to think about how the past year went for you. What goals have you achieved? What were the highlights of your year? What about your roadblocks?

Remember, it’s perfectly fine if you blew things off! Focus on the things you’re grateful for instead of regretting the things you did or didn’t do.

What were the biggest lessons you learned this year?

Write it all down freely. This may feel strange especially if you’re not used to journaling, but the benefits of keeping a journal can change your life.

Begin With The End In Mind

Visualize your ideal year. By 31st December 2018, where do you want to be in your life? More specifically, what are the outcomes you’re aiming for in your health, academics, hobbies, or relationships?

Set a theme or intention for the year!! This is what the story of your life will revolve around in the next year. Some examples—

PURPOSE: I want to find out what exactly I want to do with my life and live more intentionally.

SELF-CARE: I want to stress less about minor things and prioritize my health and learning more.

DISCIPLINE: I want to train myself to procrastinate less and follow through with the commitments I make to others and myself.

List down goals for different areas in your life. Give each of them a deadline. Make them outrageous. Please do hand-write them down, don’t just store them away in your brain and expect yourself to remember them.

Make a vision board. No, they are not BS made up by law-of-attraction enthusiasts. You know how inspired you can get when you’re scrolling through your feed looking at all the pretty studyblr photos? Images can be powerful if you use them to help achieve your goals.

Get on Pinterest and gather photos and quotes that inspire and motivate you. For instance, you can put pictures that resonate with your goals, like your dream university. Add a picture of yourself, because this is about what YOU want, after all.

Formulate A Game Plan

Now that you know what you want, it’s time to make an actionable plan to achieve that.

Break down your 2018 goals into smaller steps, and figure out what habits you can implement daily, weekly, and monthly to achieve those.

To illustrate this, one of my goals is to master thirty songs on piano. I need to dedicate thirty minutes of my time daily to learning a new segment of a piece. Weekly, I need to plan which segments of which songs I’m going to practice on. These habits will lead me to learn at least three songs per month.

Figure out how you’re going to track your progress. You can do this by downloading an app to keep your habits in check, or perhaps make a page on your bullet journal specifically for reviewing your achievements and points for improvement.

Alternatively, there are many printables out there in the studyblr community to help you out with this =)

Set incremental rewards that make you want to get up and work. If you successfully finish making a revision guide for a certain subject, why not treat yourself to some new stationery? Here are more ideas for incentives.

Take Massive Action

Guys. Please take note. You won’t be motivated all the time. Motivation is extremely fickle and unreliable. Ultimately, discipline is what will get you to your vision of where you want to be. Force yourself to follow through with your plan.

Be consistent. You won’t achieve much if you only work on days when you feel good. Train yourself to do what needs to be done, ASAP.

“Set some goals. Stay quiet about them. Smash the shit out of them. Clap for your damn self. Repeat.”

Invest In Yourself

Prioritize education over entertainment. This is so important. I’m not advising you to lay off your favorite series or band. I know how instrumental fandoms can be to your life. However, do choose to read more books, attend more conferences, and learn from mentors around you.

Don’t forget to take care of yourself and your health. Sleep and eat well, get some exercise, practice good hygiene, and drink a lot of water.

Always aim to be a good human being and serve the people around you.

“At the end of the day, it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished. It’s about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back.” —Denzel Washington

Resources

Printables/Workbooks

How to Make the Best Out of 2018 • Hello Peaceful Mind

How to Set Your One Big Theme For the Year • Arianne Serafico

The Ultimate Guide to Manifesting a Magical 2018 • Suzanne Heyn

In-Depth Blog Posts

How to Create a Personal Vision • Scott Jeffrey

The Extraordinary Power of Visualizing Success • Matt Mayberry

Helpful Books

You Are a Badass • Jen Sincero

The Power of Habit • Charles Duhigg

Outliers • Malcolm Gladwell

Happy new year to everyone and good luck in achieving your goals for 2018!! For more posts like this, just hit follow, and if you have any questions about this or you need someone to talk to, feel free to send a message or an ask ❤️

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camilleclores-blog1 · 8 years ago

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getting ready for the new year

• review your year. make a 2017 highlights journal page or something. jot down everything important that happened to you within the year, good and bad preferably, so you have a clear, summarized view of all aspects of your life.

• make a life map. it could be a chart or several lists or a spider map or an actual map with drawings and shite. what’s important is that you get a visual of all the parts of your life. mark which ones are most important to you, which ones need to be improved, where you want to focus on the most.. and make feasible plans.

• clean your room. and i’m talking, a makeover. rearrange your furniture. reorganize your things. give at least 35% of your stuff away. calibrate it to your needs and focuses of 2018. place the tools you’ll be using for those where they’ll be highly accessible.

• clean your virtual space. organize the files in your phone, tablet, and laptop into clearly labeled folders. weed out the stuff you have no use for anymore, and upload all the sentimental stuff to a cloud storage. delete your browser history, caches, apps that do nothing but distract you and take up memory.

• tie up your loose ends. all the things you’ve been postponing? kidding yourself by saying ‘i’ll do it tomorrow’ or now, ‘i’ll start next year’? finish them before the year ends. whether that’s going to your doctor for that check-up scheduled three months ago or getting your hair cut or quitting a vice. just.. do it/start now.

remember that your life won’t magically reset on January first. 2018 won’t adjust for you; life’s too much of a jerk for that, so you have to make it yours. good luck!

- 🍂

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camilleclores-blog1 · 8 years ago

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Feel free to leave me a message.

https://cclores.sarahah.com/

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camilleclores-blog1 · 8 years ago

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camilleclores-blog1 · 8 years ago

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The Most Effective Goal-Setting Plan You'll Ever Find.

A few days ago, I taked about the #1 reason why people don’t accomplish their goals: lack of genuine connection and commitment to them.

But once you’ve figured out what you really want to do, you still need a strategy for accomplishing it. Your goals are not going to get you anywhere if you don’t actually do something about them. And not just anything—but the right things.

So here’s a very straightforward, fail-proof plan for achieving your goals. I say it’s fail-proof not because error isn’t possible (no one can predict the future or control all circumstances), but because if you follow this plan, you’ll accomplish more than you would under any other plan you’ve been testing out.

1.) Focus on only 1-2 BIG goals. Seriously.

Now that you’ve figured out how you're spending time each week, let’s switch gears for a moment. Figure out what your one major goal is this year. I have two major goals—one personal, one career-driven—but wouldn’t advise choosing more than 1-2.

This is the hardest part for most people because choosing just one BIG goal to pursue requires extreme focus and connection to purpose.

But, it’s really important that you stick to just 1-2 major goals. Goals to me are different than habit changes, which I talk more about here. Your 1-2 goals should be so big, that it would take an entire year to accomplish. If you were to accomplish only these 1-2 things, you’d feel like you had a very successful year.

Examples:

Lose 40 pounds

Successfully launch a startup and drive $100k in revenue

Get into a top graduate school

Learn how to code and land a job as a front-end developer

Save for and take a month-long trip to backpack through Southeast Asia

Based on what you really want to accomplish—where your deepest values, passions, and skills intersect—choose 1-2 goals to focus on for the rest of the year. Do not aim for “reasonable.” Be a bit unreasonable. What do you really want to accomplish this year? That’s what you should make your goal.

2.) Create monthly sub-goals.

Once you’ve created your 1-2 Big Goals, create 9 monthly sub-goals (April - December 2013) for each one. The idea is that the 9 monthly sub-goals would very clearly lead to you accomplishing your 1-2 Big Goals for the year. You can obviously plan for more than 9 months. I just set 9 months as a goal in case you’re reading this now and want to set goals for 2013 specifically. Feel free to plan into 2014 if your Big Goals are going to take you longer than 9 months to accomplish.

Example:

Big Goal: Learn how to code and land a job as a front-end developer.

Sub-Goals:

April - Apply and get into the Starter League Beginner HTML/CSS class

May - Take Starter League (SL) class & code my own personal blog for practice

June - Continue taking SL class, finish coding the blog, and work on a Demo Day project

July - Finish SL class & find a company to let me do front-end coding for free to help them redesign a website

August - Apply and get into the Starter League Advanced HTML/CSS class

September - Continue taking SL class, finish up coding for the company side project

October - Finish SL class and take on one more front-end freelance project for another company

November - Finish freelance project #2 and apply to a minimum of 8 front-end developer jobs

December - Interview with companies, apply to 5 more jobs if necessary…and land a full-time developer job by 12/31!

When you break your Big Goal down this way, you can see the natural progression of your goal and exactly what would need to be done each month in order for you to get a job as a front-end developer by December 31st. Breaking it down this way makes the end goal seem even more tangible. It will get you super excited about the idea of taking on your plan and tackling that one big, amazing goal of yours.

3.) Create weekly mini-goals.

If you put my post from earlier this week into action, you’ve figured out the 20% of your work that’s driving 80% of your results. Now, the question is: what systems can you put in place to do less of the 80% of activity that isn’t generating results, and more of the 20% activity that is?

Example:

80% of work that isn’t driving a ton of results:

Checking email for 4 hours a day

Using social media too often throughout the day

Taking too many meetings during the week

Strategies to eradicate the issues above:

Check email for only 2 hours a day—one hour between 11-12pm, and one hour between 4-5pm. Use Inbox Zero techniques to answer, archive, and delete more emails in half the time.

Block social media websites between the hours of 9am-12pm and 1pm-4pm using one of these distraction blocking apps.

Only take meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12-3pm. If it doesn’t fit into the other person’s schedule, the meeting gets pushed to the following week. Exceptions can be made, but only if the meeting is of extremely high importance and/or urgency.

Once you create a list of strategies, use those—in addition to your set of monthly sub-goals—as a guide, and create 32 mini goals (this translates into 4 mini goals per month—one for each week). Each mini-goal should take no longer than a week to accomplish. Essentially, the mini goals are a way to further break down your monthly goals into highly manageable weekly chunks.

Example:

April sub-goal - Apply and get into the Starter League Beginner HTML/CSS class

April weekly mini-goals -

Week 1: Do research on Starter League program

Week 2: Submit formal application for Starter League

Week 3: Send hand-written notes to the founders to let them know how excited I am about taking the SL class

Week 4: Get accepted into SL and set up coffee meetings with 3 alums to get advice on making the most of the class

When you break your monthly sub-goals down like this, you basically create a detailed road map for making shit happen. It seems so obvious, but no one plans like this. That’s why most people fail (in addition to not creating strategies to eradicate triggers that lead to wasting time).

4.) Do your weekly planning.

Based on the weekly goals you outlined for the current month you’re in, you need to set aside 30 minutes to create a weekly “plan of attack” for accomplishing your mini-goal for the week ahead. I created this template of what your weekly planning sheet could look like:

It’s a good idea to add in your Big Goal, monthly sub-goal, and weekly mini-goal at the top of your weekly sheet to remind you of what the whole point is with all this planning business and hard work. At the beginning of every week, you should know exactly what you’re looking to accomplish every day to achieve your weekly mini-goal—so that you can move on to your next mini-goal, in order to move on to your next sub-goal, in order to accomplish your one Big Goal.

Fun to look at it like this, right?

You’ll see that I listed “additional projects and tasks” on the weekly planning template I created above. That’s because none of us have just one responsibility. We’re all juggling multiple things at any given point in time. I’ll explain how to best fit these additional projects and tasks in later this week. The point of this sheet is to help you make the tasks that are directly related to your Big Goal a priority over the other stuff you have to do. This is a huge part of goal accomplishment—you need to be willing to get your goal-related tasks done first, even when you’ve got other important things going on. If you don’t get into the habit of doing this, you’ll fail because there’s simply too much other stuff out there to distract you from your longer-term goal.

5.) Do your daily planning.

Once you’ve done your weekly planning, you need to set aside time to plan every single day for the upcoming day. I’ve soaked up a ton of productivity advice over the last several years, and this is something I hear from every productivity guru and successful person out there:

You have to plan on your own success.

If you don’t break it down to what you’ll do every day, then there’s no way you’ll accomplish your weekly, monthly, or annual goals. Basically, if you don’t plan daily, you’re screwed. Either you’re going to own your day, or your day is going to own you. I see an enormous difference in my own productivity when I plan it out thoroughly vs. just wing it. Of course, your daily plan needs to go hand-in-hand with the strategies you implement to actively avoid time-wasting triggers and activities.

Here’s an example of what your daily planning sheet can look like:

Obviously, I like colors. You can tailor your weekly and daily sheets to look however you want them to look, but these sheets work really well for me.

You’ll notice a few new sections on this daily sheet. The first is “Today’s Top Tasks"—these are the top three things you must get done for the day. If you accomplish these three things only, your day will have been a success. At least one task should be related to your weekly mini goal. This is really important: make sure you get this task done before you do anything else on your daily task list. Do your top 3 tasks in order before you do anything else, and get them out of the way. Each task should take no longer than 90 minutes (…And yes, it’s possible to get your taxes done in under 90 minutes, depending on complexity—I’ve timed it).

You’ll also notice a "Batch Tasks” section. This is a list of all the basic operational stuff you need to do your job, like coffee meetings to build new relationships, checking and answering email, getting organized, sending out email newsletters, etc. Basically, they are the tasks you need to do to keep things going, but aren’t really going to equate directly to “success” at the end of the year.

For example, I need to publish content daily for Technori.com, but if I just focus on that, we’ll have a lot of content, but not that much growth. For me, a major sub-goal would be focusing on growth hacking strategies. Therefore, while very important, editing and publishing articles is actually not a top task for me—it’s a batch task.

I’ll talk more about batch tasks this coming week, but I wanted to show them to you on the daily sheet for now, because it’s important to make note of and label them as such.

As a note, I learned a lot of the above techniques from reading I’ve done over the years. My favorite thought leaders in this space are Steven Covey, Leo Babauta, and Brian Tracy. I would highly recommend reading any of the books these three guys have written, particularly Leo's Power of Less. That being said, I’ve learned about and tested the psychology behind why we achieve and don’t achieve what we set out to do. So, I tailored the plan above based on what I’ve seen actually work and not work through my various productivity testing. I believe the plan above is the absolute best aggregated, tailored plan for making your goals a reality.

So there you have it! An easy-as-they-come, fail-proof goal-setting (and achieving) method. Four steps. A lot of happiness and accomplished goals. Boom. Later this week, I’ll talk in depth about batch tasking and weekly reviews to keep you in check, streamline your time management processes, and stick to your goals.

Hope you’ll pass this along to any one else who might find it useful!

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