mysticalwinter

[mysticalwinter]

30-5-2025

I'm back after so long! I have always been a chaotic student fueled with random burst of energy and motivation, followed by days of not studying. I want to change that and give my best one last time. If I fail, I'll know its not for me since I can never put the required hardwork.

The reason probably why I dont give as much efforts as I can is probably the fear of failure and being burnt out. I have failed so many times that I no longer want to try. But I will have to, that's my only chance I have at an attempt for a good life, the life that I always dreamt about.....

I will be doing my daily logs here with reflections and study goals.

Targets for today

1) 15 Questions from Polity worksheet - Write them on anki and study them(1st revision)

2) Study 20 questions from worksheet 1

3) Make notes of Historical underpinnings, evolution and features

4) Read chapter 1 and 2 from Spectrum

5) Study chapter 2 from lecture

6) Do modern history pyqs

[mysticalwinter]

Day 3/100

Yes I'm repeating day three cause I did major procrastination for the last two days

Targets for today

Revision in the morning: revise Polity, anthro, Current affairs notes and related answer writing - 3 hours

1) Polity: lecture : Preamble, parliamentary features, federal features- 2 hours

2) Anthropology: lecture 82 : 2 hours

Notes on lecture: 78,79,80 - 2 hours

3) Current affairs lecture- 3 hour - lecture+ researching the mains topics

4) Modern history- chapter 6 - 2 hours

[mysticalwinter]

Day 3/100 of 100 days of productivity

I'm so so lethargic and procastinate so much god!!! I ended up sleeping for like 12 hours today and the rest of the time, I just watched youtube shorts on my phone. God I really hate myself sometimes. I'll complete the current affairs of yesterday and today but the rest, I'll have to add to my backlog.

[mysticalwinter]

Day 2/100 days of productivity

So well I got very very distracted all day. Sometimes it would be the phone, sometimes I would just feel sleepy. But well I did study which made me feel good. I'll try to complete more of my targets tomorrow hopefully✨️

Targets for tomorrow:

1) Anthropology- lecture 82, 83, 84

- notes of Lecture 78,79,80

- Revise marriage

- Read pyqs of Unit 9

2) Polity - Lakshmikant: ch- 1,2,3

3) Current affairs lecture + notes

4) Go and buy Lakshmikant and Vivek Singh

(Further review on 5th november,10th november ,19th november and 8th december)

So I didn't do anything this day except buying my new books, the whole day was a waste and I'm filled with guilt.

[mysticalwinter]

Hundred days of Productivity

Day 1/100

Targets of the day

1) Current affairs - watch unacdemy lecture and make notes

-read rest of the news from newspaper.

2) Anthropology- complete Religion notes and class 76 notes.

-Watch class 82

- Read notes of classical evolutionism

3) Polity class 1 on Legal history

- do chapter 1, 2 and 3 from lakshmikant

(Further reviews on 4th November, 9th November, 18th November, 7th december)

[mysticalwinter]

Okay so enough is ENOUGH!!! I have procrastinated for way too long. My life is totally not in my control and if anything, it makes me sick how lazy and unproductive I am. And its not even like I'm doing something very very important! All I have to do is study but no, I'm just wasting my time everyday on phone as if on the last day some miracle will happen that will help me top the exam.

Dear me, is this what you want to do? Ruin your life like this? People are already laughing at you and you are giving them more reasons. Just start!!! I don't care how you are going to do it, how you will finish everything, but do it!!. You have 100 days, 100 days to finish whatever the efficking syllabus you need to finish and no! No more excuses. Please! Don't you realise thus is your last chance??? Cmon what happened to all the dreams we saw? They can't be fulfilled by doing nothing right?

Okay so I am really desperate. I'm going to start 100 days of productivity challenge(from 2nd November to 10th Feb) and here are things I need to do:

November:

1) complete Anthropology- all notes, lectures, pyqs of paper 1

2) 25 lectures of Polity + Governance+ social justice: make their notes and read it once! Attempt the pyqs, Complete Lakshmikant

3) Ethics: Ethics and human interface, Human values, Attitude, Contributions of moral thinkers, Public services values and ethics in pub ed. Do the pyqs

4) Do 5 essays

5) Magazines- may, june

December:

1) Anthropology- do 2nd reading of the notes, add value to notes from model answers. Do pyqs of paper 2.

2) Geography- Do all ncerts + gc leong + Review classnotes and make new notes with combined info. Attempt pyqs

3) Do Disaster management + pyqs

4) Ethics do all leftover chapters

5) Do 5 essays

6) Magazines- July, August

January:

1) Shift to prelims mode and prepare on the basis of sfg mostly

2) Ancient History- complete ncert and class notes

3) Modern history - complete one reading of spectrum, add notes to the book itself and study of 2nd reading according to test series.

4) Anthropology- Do third reading of the notes. Attempt difficult pyqs and questions again.

5) Do 5 essays

6) Complete Internal security

7) csat- solve atleast 8000 questions

Magazines: September October

Till 10th February:

1) Medieval history: Ncert+ class notes + pyq

2) Art and Culture: Nitin singhania + ncert+ pyq

3) csat: solve atleast 8000 questions + last 5 years pyq

4) Magazine: November

My plan starts from tomorrow and I will definitely achieve it!!!

[mysticalwinter]

Me when I realise I should have started revising wayyy earlier in the year… 🥲🔫

[mysticalwinter]

Dimaag kharab ho gaya aaj. Wanted to have some good food (kebab parantha) but bro decided to come take me from library early. And later he was like bas momos khayenge. Na mai padh paayi na hi kha paayi. But chalo later I did some work and completed one class of Eco. Aaj Manocha Sir had his last class with us. It was quite emotional for me since it was also our first class and introduction to vajiram. Lets see maybe the course will end by next week. I won't lie but I'm going to miss this phase :')

[mysticalwinter]

Joined library again! Ghar pe bilkul padha ni ja raha tha and finally its such a relief to be able to study. I complete 3 classes and newspaper today which might seem less but for me is a good starting point. Will continue to complete classes only this week.

[mysticalwinter]

Day 85

Low-key wasted another. Although I did two classes so that's a start. I'm planning to write my to do list every might for the next day amd just following that and editing the post later. Lets hope this gets me productive.

[mysticalwinter]

Day 86

Writing this at 7 pm, and haven't studied even a word today. I spent the day watching modern family and daydreaming about my training once I clear the exam (for which I should be studying idk why can't I just get it). I also did some random window shopping on amazon of all the things I would buy then made a pintrest board and cleared my tab. My bf and parents thinks I'm studying but I'm honestly wasting time and I feel shameful, but really not doing anything about it.

I'll edit if I do study something otherwise I'm doomed. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

[mysticalwinter]

Day 87

Low-key wasted my day but managed to do 2 lectures. Rest I spent the whole day watch shows and chilling as if I don't have an exam and am financially independent. My parents expect me to clear this exam this year but I'm so not ready. I don't know what to do.

I had made plans to give the exam next year but the exam got postponed and it ruined my whole schedule. Now i'm not sure how to use the extra time and maybe clear the exam this year only. It might seem easy but trust me the procrastination is too hard to let go. God help me please.

[mysticalwinter]

With 88 days left for my exam, I'll be giving my best and putting daily logs here. Hopefully that will motivate me not to be inconsistent and lazy and actually work hard!!!

My target for the day:

Complete 4 pending lectures of economy and read the current affairs.

Edit: Got a fever the same day so couldnt study at all. Going to be doing all this the next day.

[mysticalwinter]

Such great advices!

Tips on how to study history by an history student

I've had this idea at the back of my mind for a while now. The thing is that as an history student I very often have people ask me for tips on how to approach the subject when they have to study for an exam. Even before university, since I was the history nerd in all my friends groups I had people either ask me for tips, or for help studying the subject, and memorizing stuff. I fully understand that it can be a tough subject, expecially if you don't have a professor that teaches with passion, and that maybe expects you to memorize a bunch of dates without much explaining. If you are used to study other subject, and you only have a couple of history classes, you might find it difficult to approach it, because the study method you normally use doesn't work. So here are a few of my tips on how to approach history, some of them are honestly quite silly, but believe me they truly work.

Aim to understand the processes and not simply memorize everything by heart

This is one of the funamental things about history. I know some teachers don't care and will just tell you to memozire a bunch of dates but that is useless. The true aim of history is to understand the processes that took place in the past, how they are linked to each other, the consequences of actions, etc. Not only you will get more out of what you are studying, but it makes the job much easier. Everything that happened in history was the consequence of a previous action, and has caused something. If you truly understand the passages it will be much easier to remember the course of events.

Understand that events in history are just like the events in the plot of a tv show or a book

I bet that everyone here could write an essay on the full plot and characters of their favourite tv show or book, without looking for any references. Even if the characters are a lot, and have terrible names, you probably remember them all, can tell them apart, and know perfectly everything that happens in the story. History is the exact same thing. The only difference is that usually you don't get a chance to get invested in the characters, and don't really differenciated them. What I have always suggested it to try to see whatever period of history you have to study as a book, or a tv show. The events are the plot of the story, and historical figures are the characters. This point is fully linked to the next two tips, that are all about characterizing historical figures to better remember about them.

Put a face to the name

Look for paintings or pictures of historical figures. being able to imagine them with an actual face is very helpful. You'll find that a lot of historical figures have characteristics that make them recognizable. I truly believe that being able to actually imagine whatever historical figure, helps a lot with remembering whta happened. I fully try to imagine the whole movie in my head when I am studying, and this passage is fundamental.

Look for further silly informations on historical figures

This sounds very stupid but bare with me for a second. This is an additional step to characterize the historical figure you have to learn about. I find that associating them not only to their face, but also to very random informations, can help so much with remembering about them. I strongly believe that the stupidest the information the better, because it will probably be easier to remember, and it's less probable something they have in common with other people. I know for a fact that it's the silly things I will remember (which is something that will come up again in another tip). Here are some examples. Giacomo Leopardi, one of the most famous poets of Italian litterature, known mainly for litteraly inventig cosmic pessimism, hated soup so much as a child, he fully wrote a poem against it. Roman Emperor Claudius is said to have tried to hyde from the praetorian guards that were looking for him to put him in charge of the empire. He thought they were looking for him to murder him, and instead he became emperor. These are just examples, but they are very simple recognizable facts that stay with you and help you to have a full image of the historical figure you are studying.

Picture the events like a movie in your head

You now have fully characterized subjects, and have to learn what they did, and what happened, when reading and then reviewing try to imagine the events as if they were a movie. Fully picture things in your head (again paintings and photographs can help a lot in this step). This association, and the fact that you are linking one event to the next in a sequence will help you memorizing facts.

The sillier the retelling is the better you will remember it

Depending on the subject you are studying this could potentially be controverse. Historical facts are very serious, and they should be percieved as such, not only because it's actual stuff that happened in the past, but also because oftentimes we still have consequences today. But part of me also believes that we should make fun of historical figures sometimes, often it helps with making them smaller, less scary if you will. I won't dwell too much on this subject since is huge, but what I mean with the purpuse of studying history is quite simple. When studying history, expecially if you have a chance to review it with someone, try to retell it in a funny or silly way to each other. I know for a fact that what I remember better about past classes, are the informations on which someone made some kind of joke or stupid comment. I have no idea what's the science about it, but whenever I have helped someone studying (whatever was the subject really) the stupidest ways I explained things the better people seemed to remember them. This is surely quite a silly tip, but believe me when I tell you it works. (Honestly I also personally find that when I get really mad about something that happened, I remember it quite well. So probably the theory is that if there's strong emotions involved you have a better chance to remember facts. And there's a lot in history to get angry at, so keep this in mind too).

On memorizing dates

This is the most dreadful part of studying history for everyone, even for us who actually chose to study the subject. As I said I refuse to see history as a long list of dates to learn by heart, but surely there's important dates to remember, and the periodization is fundamental to understand events. I have different methods. The first is one is to have a specific highlighter that I use only for dates in my notes. I usually use yellow, because it's the strongest colour I own, and it can't be mistaken for whatever other colour I use to highlight other informations. Secondly When there's a big list of dates I like to have a second set of notes, only regadring those dates. I write everything down in chronological order, so that I can see what happened during the same period of time, and write a word/ sentence to describe each fact. Since I usally study long periods of history all togheter I like to divide the list in sections depending on the century. This is very hepful to create smaller groups of dates. After having this list, since there's no other way to remember all of that, I try to repeat it until I memorize it. What I normally do is repeate it at least once a day, much better if I manage twice. Usually I do it as the first thing before reviewing the full set of notes, and then once at the end of my daily studying session. I begin by only reading it outloud (I think reading outloud helps much more so I highly reccomend doing that). When I am starting to memorize things I start switching the order of dates so I read them from the last of the list to the first one. This helps because if you read the same list again and again, you'll start to remember informations mostly because you associate them to the previous and next points. By breaking up the usual order of the list you force yourself to only link date and fact. The last thing is to randomly go through the list and picking, for this same reason. I also would reccomend copying the list multiple times, and trying to rewrite it without looking at the original.

Review with someone who has no clue what you are talking about

This is actually a general study tip that works for any subject. I know it's not possible for everyone, but I highly reccomend finding someone willing to listen to you talking for a couple of hours on what you are studying. The less they know the better, because they will ask you questions. The thing is very simple, if you explain what you are studying to someone who has very little knowledge on the subject, you will be forced to : 1. Be clear in your exposition, 2. Explain clue points, 3. Have a very clear idea of what you are talking about. It's a great exercise to test if you have truly understood the passages, and sometimes it foces you to understand things you are insicure about. It is one of the most useful tips of this list in my personal opinion. This study tecnique has helped me so much in the past, and I still use it to this day. I usually annoy my father with this, who is quite interested in history, so he always challenges me with great questions. I also found that helping someone who is struggling with the class was helpful, because not only I had to understan the passages, but I had to force myself to help someone else understand those same informations for the test. Reviewing out loud on your own is always very importan, but this addition when possible truly changes the game.

This is my very standard set of tips on how to study history. I might think of others in the future, and in that case I will make sure to add them on here, for anyone who needs them.

Untill then I hope that this can be useful for someone out there. If I was unclear on any points, feel free to tell me and ask me for clarifications. Same goes if you have other doubts or a specific problem with studying history. My inbox is always open and I am very happy to be helpful if I can. Studying is fun and all, but it's much easier if we help each other in the process.

I'm sorry it was a super long post, thank you for reading, and good luck with your tests whatever they may be on.

[mysticalwinter]

Took me until about halfway through college before I realized “study” means “play with the material in a variety of ways until you understand it” and not just “read the assigned chapters and do the homework” and I think that probably should have been discussed at some point prior to that.

[mysticalwinter]

How do people deal with constant burnout? I have so much work to do but I end up procrastinating anyways and if I study properly for a day, I don't feel like studying at all next day.

[mysticalwinter]

After being a silent reader for like a month, I finally decided to start writing myself(also cause finals are starting and I desperately need some motivation) Keeping a studyblr will keep me going hopefully. Cant believe that the semester is already over and finals will be starting in a week(I havent done anything yet! :')) Any study tips are more than welcome here♥️

My name - I always thought of tumblr as a secret community where we can be ourselves without 50 people judging me. So I'll be using a faux name 'Winter' which I basically stole from the kpop idol Winter but hey, it's a cool name.

Age- 19

What am I studying? - I'm a pursuing a degree in modern languages. A big mistake actually since somehow I'm not able to learn Spanish in online classes and it stresses me everyday(yes we are still having online classes in uni). Apart from that I'm also studying hindi and will be starting Anthropology soon.

Every interaction is appreciated and welcomed♥️

Image source: pinterest