No Thoughts, Head Empty

This week, like any week leading up to immense mental stress, has left me drained of inspiration. This vastly harms both my hobbies and my part-time occupation as a KNN Columnist. So, how does this apply to you? Well, motivation is a factor that surrounds all of our lives, things like school, hobbies, school, and school. School as a teenager is practically our entire lives, and without any inherent will to do anything, what can we do? This is why I have taken the last two days after school to prioritize my own time. Now during those two days, I did have other reasons to not work, being that I was watching a show with my cousin and celebrating my sister’s birthday at a dinner, but despite all of that I feel more refreshed than I would have otherwise. So what can you do to regain your mental fortitude? Take a break, get a snack, go to bed at a reasonable time, and do not commit yourself to only work. We are people, not robots designed to work, we are in an age of plenty, so why must we continue subjecting ourselves to the constant work of our forebears?

Studying is Dead, Long Live the Studying

I have never really understood studying. I get that you are meant to review all your notes and remember what you have forgotten throughout the unit or the semester, or even the year for us AP folks, but I have always wondered if I was doing it right. If I was studying in the correct form, the panel of three judges would all give me a ten. Studying was like a sport, and I am unsure of its rules. But maybe all of this is in my head, maybe it’s something so simple that even if you didn’t know how to do it you could figure it out and be correct. “But Austin,” you ask “how do you study?” Well, my dear reader, I look at my notes, and I read them, and I do the worksheets provided, and look at the keys, and okay this sounds generic and obvious. One thing I do that may also be very obvious, is on my math reviews before a test, and give myself some bullet points on what I should take away from the questions I got wrong. A lot of the time it is just me telling myself “Do the math correctly,” and other times it’s telling me to do X thing the x value, and stuff like that. While I personally hardly highlight anything unless explicitly told to, which may or may not affect the way my brain retains information, I do implore you to study in whatever way feels comfortable, and whatever you think will help you succeed. 

-Austin

 As a middle schooler with barely any real interest in attending school, it gets incredibly hard for me to complete assignments both well, and on time because of lack of motivation. And even though I have my moments where I manage to create something spectacular, they normally happen incredibly close to the due date or past due. Which I get, sucks. So, I’d like to share some of my methods with everyone on how to get your creative parts going as much as you can (these work for me, though they might not work for you).

 It truly depends on the day, so I normally make schedules either on paper, electronically, or in my own visual mind (though I would probably write it down if you want it to be most effective). Like I said, depending on the day will determine the time I need to prep. 

The first thing I normally do is set a timer and pick a specific item to do that either won’t take a lot of time or will be able to skip off of quickly- like just randomly scrolling through shorts, if not, I do something that doesn’t take much thought. This part is mostly for rewinding and making sure you branch off from the other things you were just previously doing.

 Next, after a selected amount of time (of course, I would choose the duration based on how burned out I felt), I would begin to work on whatever needed to be done- and for this week, the example would be studying. Preferably, I would choose activities like flashcards and studying notes, maybe even reading it out or recording it so you can listen to it whilst doing other things. The main thing for studying I believe is knowing what works for you- if that's reading notes you took throughout the lecture, or if it’s something like reading out loud to someone or something else.

-Charlotte