Milo Week One - Focusing in School!

    Last year, every day after school I went through the same routine. I got picked up, went home, sat down to do work, and got distracted for a while until I realized I needed to focus and got maybe an hour of actual work in before I had to make dinner. I cooked for my mom and sister a lot of nights, which I loved, but it didn’t leave a lot of time for me to focus on working. After dinner, I went to my job at Walgreens and worked, most nights until ten. When I got back home, I’d go upstairs to get ready for bed. Every night, I was left feeling unaccomplished and unprepared for the next day at school. I always felt like I should’ve spent my time better and gotten more done. 

After seeing my grade was a C in math because of all the missing homework, I realized I needed to find out a better way to manage my time, or at least keep my focus. I tried everything from studying outside at a park to playing thunderstorm noises for hours on end (yes, really) while I tried to work. Everyone’s way of learning is different, but I found a few things that helped me focus enough to boost my grades and do well for finals. 


1. Change your surroundings

    The first thing I found that ended up saving my grades that year was that at home, everything was too distracting. I couldn’t put myself in the mindset of being able to focus on work when there were so many other things to do. I’d do literally anything to avoid working, I re-learned an entire language (ASL) just because I didn’t want to do something that would’ve taken ten minutes. So the week before finals, when it finally kicked in that Oh Yes If You Don’t Actually Try, You Will Actually Fail, I took all of my study guides for math and my history textbook and walked to the library across from school. When I got there, I reserved a study room and sat and worked for hours, relearning everything from that year. In the end, I felt so much better about my final, like I was prepared enough to pass the test. So even if the library is a stretch, separating yourself from somewhere like your bedroom where your bed and phone and other distractions are was really helpful for me. 


I decided that since I’m already at 400 words for this, I’m going to continue this blog next week! 

Thank you for reading <3




Comments

  1. Eva GottesfeldSeptember 1, 2022 at 2:47 PM

    I'm so glad you are learning better study techniques from your mistakes from last year! Now I have a deeper understanding of how you feel when approaching school work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 6, 2022 at 8:36 PM

    Finding the right approach to studying, and learning in general, for yourself is such an important but hard thing to do, so I'm happy you found the way that works for you! One thing that I find helps keep me motivated once I'm in the door is not taking off my shoes until I finish my tasks.

    ReplyDelete

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