Looking for an edge taking your advancement exam? Here are five methods to try, that’ll help get you working smarter, not harder.
1. Take more breaks: Respecting our natural attention spans.
In Stephen Covey’s “7 habits” he ends with taking more breaks but I include it as a starting point because I think it is clearly the most important. In the book Covey shares the story of a woodcutter who is furiously hacking away at a tree with a dull axe. The blade needs to be sharpened, but the woodcutter refuses to stop working. Rather than pause to improve the situation, the woodcutter just continues banging against the tree in total futility.
When all else fails, it can be helpful to reevaluate our process, our tools, our habits. Are we approaching the challenges of our life with a dull axe? Have we taken the time to “sharpen the saw” — to keep our own skills fresh and up-to-date?
Remember- it’s not “being lazy” to take time to sharpen your saw. Quite the opposite, it results in more productivity, not less.
Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have-you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual.
Sharpening the saw is a great habit to get into in all areas of our lives, but I think it can be especially beneficial when it comes to work and helping us to avoid burnout.
On average, our brains are only able to focus for 90 minutes and need at least 20 minutes rest thereafter, if we consider our natural ultradian rhythms:
Just getting away from work and having a rest can be a good start. Taking breaks throughout the day* can help you to refresh your mind and reset your attention span.
Another way to implement breaks–especially when you’re busy–is to work in small bursts. The Pomodoro Technique is perfect for this. Just set a timer for 25 minutes, and when it goes off, take a short break. Stretch your legs, grab a drink, check your email, or just sit back and relax.
When you have lots to do, you can use small, easy tasks like replying to emails or following up a phone call to give your brain a rest from the hard work that takes up the rest of your day.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
– Abe Lincoln
2. Take naps: One of the most efficient ways to boost your brain function
Research has shown that naps lead to improvement in cognitive function, creative thinking and memory performance. In particular, napping benefits the learning process, helping us take in and retain information better.
The improved learning process comes from naps actually helping our brain to solidify memories: Research indicates that when memory is first recorded in the brain–in the hippocampus, to be specific–it’s still “fragile” and easily forgotten, especially if the brain is asked to memorize more things. Napping, it seems, pushes memories to the neocortex, the brain’s “more permanent storage,” preventing them from being “overwritten.”
One study into memory found that participants did remarkably better on a test following a nap than those who didn’t sleep at all: Not only are naps beneficial for consolidating memories and helping us to remember new information (handy if your job includes a lot of research during the day!), they’re also useful in helping us to avoid burnout: Burnout is a signal that says you can’t take in more information in this part of your brain until you’ve had a chance to sleep.
So when should you be taking a nap? Well, if you pay attention to your body’s natural circadian rhythm, you’ll probably find that you have a dip in energy levels in the early afternoon. This is because we’re actually designed to have two sleeps per day, according to Loughborough University Professor, Jim Horne.
Our bodies are made to sleep for a long period overnight and a shorter stint during the day, which is why our energy levels drop and we felt sluggish or sleepy in the afternoon. Even if you don’t have a nap, this is a good time to listen to your body and have a rest.
3. Don’t prioritize your schedule, schedule your priorities.
Most of us try to keep to something resembling a regular schedule. Unfortunately, by the time you’ve finished scheduling all the overtime, grocery shopping, ballet lessons, family meetings and dentist appointments, it can be hard to find the time to go to the bathroom, much less pick up a new hobby. Anytime you start by looking at a full schedule, it will be a daunting proposition to fit in anything new, no matter how exciting or potentially valuable. This is why you must schedule your priorities and not justprioritize your schedule.
Say for example your number one priority this year is to learn how to play the accordion. To do this you must be willing to practice many long hours. You must study music. You might even need to attend lessons or hire a tutor. Start with a blank week. Schedule the time you will need to master your accordion. Now, having placed the most important items on the calendar first, try to wedge in everything else.In all likelihood you will not have time for everything; some things will get bumped off the schedule. So why bother? Because the things getting bumped off the list are no longer your top priorities
5. Try not to do too much studying at one time.
If you try to do too much studying at one time, you will tire and your studying will not be very effective. Space the work you have to do over shorter periods of time. Taking short breaks will restore your mental energy.
6. Plan specific times for studying.
Study time is any time you are doing something related to schoolwork. It can be completing assigned reading, working on a paper or project, or studying for a test. Schedule specific times throughout the week for your study time.
7. Try to study at the same times each day.
Studying at the same times each day establishes a routine that becomes a regular part of your life, just like sleeping and eating. When a scheduled study time comes up during the day, you will be mentally prepared to begin studying.
8. Set specific goals for their study times.
Goals will help you stay focused and monitor your progress. Simply sitting down to study has little value. You must be very clear about what you want to accomplish during your study times.
9. Start studying when planned.
You may delay starting your studying because you don’t like an assignment or think it is too hard. A delay in studying is called “procrastination.” If you procrastinate for any reason, you will find it difficult to get everything done when you need to. You may rush to make up the time you wasted getting started, resulting in careless work and errors.
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