Working smarter not harder

[clarke54321]

Hi Everyone,

Sorry if this questions comes across as quite silly. To this day I have often heard teachers, parents, and fellow AN users telling me to work smarter and not harder. I don't entirely understand how to put this into practice with my work at the moment.

I can understand that this means, for example, not to continue doing questions that you know how to do or wasting time on concepts that you thoroughly know.

If anyone has any advice or explanations it would be greatly appreciated! 

[Joseph41]

Hi Everyone,

Sorry if this questions comes across as quite silly. To this day I have often heard teachers, parents, and fellow AN users telling me to work smarter and not harder. I don't entirely understand how to put this into practice with my work at the moment.

I can understand that this means, for example, not to continue doing questions that you know how to do or wasting time on concepts that you thoroughly know.

If anyone has any advice or explanations it would be greatly appreciated! 

Hey there, Clarke!

Interesting thread. You're right - a lot of people to trot out this phrase (myself included) without really elaborating on what actually constitutes 'working smart'. It's a bit of a wishy-washy term, of course, but I think it does have some sort of foundation that we can work from.

I haven't thought about what I'm going to type yet, so you might come across a bunch of somewhat connected thoughts, but here are some ideas:

1. Limiting distractions. Don't take your phone into your study area. If you're trying to right an essay but are checking Facebook every three minutes, or if you're midway through a conversation with a friend, of course your work will suffer. You will lose your train of thought easily, and it's often quite difficult to get back into the 'study mindset'. Speaking of your study area:

2. Differentiate where you work and where you study. So for me, I never, ever studied in my room during VCE (I do now, but only due to necessity haha). Otherwise, I feel it's rather easy to get confused. For example, if you're trying to study on your bed (as I know a lot of people do), it would be easy to be tempted to just doze off for ten minutes (three hours).

3. Don't try to push yourself unnecessarily. If it's 10.30pm and you're absolutely knackered, go to bed. Sleep. If you have something that you really need to do, consider waking up early and doing it in the morning.

4. Prioritise. Do what you need to do - not what you want to do. I sometimes found myself doing countless hours of, say, VisCom in order to avoid Further, which I found relatively uninteresting. In one sense, that's a good form of procrastination. But in another sense, I would have benefitted much more from studying what I actually needed to study at the time.

5. Use to-do lists. I live by to-do lists and absolutely love them. Be organised. Have a diary. Do whatever it takes for you to feel on top of things. Sometimes, the hardest bit about studying is actually starting. I found that strategies like these help in that process, limiting time where you know that you should be studying, but you're not.

All of these strategies, really, are about efficiency. Why spend three hours on something when you can do it in an hour? Why struggle half-doing an essay for four hours when you can smash it out in two? It's all about being smart with your study strategies, and I guess that's what gives birth to the 'study smart, not hard' phrase. Of course, that's not to say that you shouldn't work hard; it just means that you shouldn't work hard fruitlessly (this evoked a mental image for me of studying next to a basket of fruit haha).

I'm sure that other people can elaborate on this post, but it is, if nothing else, a start.

I hope some of that is useful. If it's not, please feel free to clarify! Best of luck.

[qazser]

Hey there, Clarke!

Interesting thread. You're right - a lot of people to trot out this phrase (myself included) without really elaborating on what actually constitutes 'working smart'. It's a bit of a wishy-washy term, of course, but I think it does have some sort of foundation that we can work from.

I haven't thought about what I'm going to type yet, so you might come across a bunch of somewhat connected thoughts, but here are some ideas:

1. Limiting distractions. Don't take your phone into your study area. If you're trying to right an essay but are checking Facebook every three minutes, or if you're midway through a conversation with a friend, of course your work will suffer. You will lose your train of thought easily, and it's often quite difficult to get back into the 'study mindset'. Speaking of your study area:

2. Differentiate where you work and where you study. So for me, I never, ever studied in my room during VCE (I do now, but only due to necessity haha). Otherwise, I feel it's rather easy to get confused. For example, if you're trying to study on your bed (as I know a lot of people do), it would be easy to be tempted to just doze off for ten minutes (three hours).

3. Don't try to push yourself unnecessarily. If it's 10.30pm and you're absolutely knackered, go to bed. Sleep. If you have something that you really need to do, consider waking up early and doing it in the morning.

4. Prioritise. Do what you need to do - not what you want to do. I sometimes found myself doing countless hours of, say, VisCom in order to avoid Further, which I found relatively uninteresting. In one sense, that's a good form of procrastination. But in another sense, I would have benefitted much more from studying what I actually needed to study at the time.

5. Use to-do lists. I live by to-do lists and absolutely love them. Be organised. Have a diary. Do whatever it takes for you to feel on top of things. Sometimes, the hardest bit about studying is actually starting. I found that strategies like these help in that process, limiting time where you know that you should be studying, but you're not.

All of these strategies, really, are about efficiency. Why spend three hours on something when you can do it in an hour? Why struggle half-doing an essay for four hours when you can smash it out in two? It's all about being smart with your study strategies, and I guess that's what gives birth to the 'study smart, not hard' phrase. Of course, that's not to say that you shouldn't work hard; it just means that you shouldn't work hard fruitlessly (this evoked a mental image for me of studying next to a basket of fruit haha).

I'm sure that other people can elaborate on this post, but it is, if nothing else, a start.

I hope some of that is useful. If it's not, please feel free to clarify! Best of luck.

Regarding to do lists, get habitica and make an AN group

Credit to @hamo94 for this tip

[Joseph41]

^Could you expand a little on Habitica? I think I understand the general premise but I'm not familiar with it.

[qazser]

^Could you expand a little on Habitica? I think I understand the general premise but I'm not familiar with it.

Its a bit like an RPG game within a to do list. So if you compete tasks, you earn money and xp(to buy stuff) and basically if you don't you lose health and die. Can join a "group" which can do quests, so if i don't do work, the whole group loses health etc.

[JellyBeanz]

Its a bit like an RPG game within a to do list. So if you compete tasks, you earn money and xp(to buy stuff) and basically if you don't you lose health and die. Can join a "group" which can do quests, so if i don't do work, the whole group loses health etc.

Sounds interesting, i might check it out, if anyone has made a group or anything let me know

[Poetic-Justice]

I think i should give that a try, has anyone tried forest?

[qazser]

I think i should give that a try, has anyone tried forest?

Forests looks good but meh, if i can't use my phone, would use my pc, so same thing

[jammin]

Its a bit like an RPG game within a to do list. So if you compete tasks, you earn money and xp(to buy stuff) and basically if you don't you lose health and die. Can join a "group" which can do quests, so if i don't do work, the whole group loses health etc.

I used to have a runescape addiction. Habitica solved all of that.. and more!

Definitely rate this thing, grab a couple of friends and go at it

[Elizawei]

Made a group, if anyone wants to join: 

https://habitica.com/?partyInvite=a7126ac805642f506f5d1a3e5ad8f027e002f57541553affbe7f90821a65182ff17a0a778eeed05c7d912f471f625a3d158f47b6b722ea7564f1d4262036ff924a4d417ef2299683b93d3af91bf855071328311478263d378e3bec2af6bab7869ce9a000edb81deddd9661fa9a9b969821ee2799c69e76

[TheCommando]

Hey Clarke,
just to add on, and go a bit deeper

Breaking down tasks and choosing the most apropriate

When doing the most import subject at the time you may want to figure out what tasks you need to do for that and most importantly what tasks would help the most. For eg. is copying down those notes really helpful? I may be at the time but what about tomorrow? Will i still remember it? Or is answering these practice SAC questions more helpful? In other words it's all about preparing you as best as possible for the SAC

Here's a link that can really help you. It's about the most effective study techniques http://www.tsfx.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/VCE-2016-Study-Tip-31.pdf?utm_source=tsfx&utm_medium=email&utm_content=:80/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/VCE-2016-Study-Tip-31.pdf&utm_term=2&utm_campaign=5032:%20VCE%20Edge%20Study%20Tip%203