alibrarymama

Another good one from my good friend M.

How to Become a Straight-A Student by Cal Newport If you are thinking that I am no longer a student and did not read a book on the topic when I was, you would be right. This was recommended to me for the time management system, which requires no more than five minutes a day and can be dropped and picked up again without a fuss. Here’s the basic idea: Your tools are a calendar and notebook paper. Every morning, write out your schedule on a piece of notebook paper. Include your obligations and your free time. Write in what you need and want to do, using time slots to keep you from over-scheduling yourself. Throughout the day, on this same piece of paper, write down any new things that might come up – new assignments or appointments and so on. In the morning, transfer the new things to your master calendar. At this point, pick days for each step of an assignment involving multiple steps and write them down there. Anything on your big to-do list that won’t fit into the next day should be assigned to other days, too. For M., the part that she liked best was not trying to write things down on the right day when you first hear about it. For me, I liked assigning times, to keep me honest about how much I can and can’t do.

The rest of the book has good advice, too, though better for students. The basic premise is that you should work smarter, not harder, so that you get good grades, actually learn, and still have time for health, hobbies, and a social life. The author pulled together the best techniques from current Ivy League straight-A students, and the advice is good. It tells you, for example, how to take just the right amount of notes to be able to highlight the key points and know where you’re missing things. It covers how to pick which readings need to be read, which skimmed, and which can be safely skipped. There’s detailed advice on studying, including when, where, how and how long. The recommendations on research paper writing were quite sound, including things that took me until junior year to figure out, how to use library databases, and even advising talking to a librarian. (Hooray!) Professors needn’t worry either – Newport talks about when it’s good to talk to the professor, and how to be sure you’re not brownnosing.

All in all, the time management technique is useful for any busy person. The scholarship techniques are a really good summary which I’d recommend both to students and professors.