School After Vacation – A Few Tips On How To Get Ready

School After Vacation

I am guessing you are familiar with this problem: When you go to school you study hard to get good grades. After (obviously, without any problem) you get those good grades you go on a vacation where you don’t even think about studying.

And then the harsh reality hits you (figuratively not literally, there is no violence here).

You have to prepare for school after you just went on a vacation. And after all the fun you had you can’t even begin to imagine how you are going to return to your previous form. While you could just rationally think about what you need to do to prepare yourself, it’s easier to go to Google to find the answer (I would have done the same thing, so I guess I can’t say too much on this topic).

What to do before the school starts

You are not going to prison

Just as the title says you are not going to prison. Because you enjoyed the time you spent while on vacation, going back to school might feel like going to prison. You have to get up early in the morning, go to school and listen to lectures you don’t care about and when you go back to your house you have homework to do (now that I think about it, this does sound like being in prison, doesn’t it?).

If you are overthinking about how difficult it’s going to be, let me remind you of one thing.

You have already done this once before.

You have already done it once, so you can do it again. If you think about how this year is going to be harder than the previous one, you just have to prepare for it (that’s what you are here for, after all).

Set goals

The first thing you need to do is to set the goals you want to achieve in the coming year. Take out a piece of paper and write a few goals you want to achieve. Read the goals you set for yourself and see if you have missed something. If you did, add those goals to your list.

If you think that you have too many things you want to achieve, you can always get rid of those goals later. For now, keep them there and something might come out of it.

Now, let’s talk about (arguably) your most important goal, the grades you want to get. Most students have a certain grade they wish to get. But what most of them don’t know is that they are underestimating their potential and set their target too low.

That’s why, I want you to change the goals you set. Aim higher. Try to see what you can achieve when you push yourself.

You are far more capable than you think you are. By setting bigger goals you will be able to live up to your potential. Even if you fail, I guarantee you that you will achieve more than if you stick with your original goals.

W. Clement Stone said it best: “Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.”

Readjust your sleep schedule

Considering that up until now you were on vacation, I can assume that your sleep schedule is about as consistent as my workout schedule. However, unlike my workout schedule, your sleep is essential for good studying (you can make an argument that working out helps you to concentrate better, but that would make my previous argument weaker, so how about you look the other way for this one?).

Sleep helps your brain to sort and store the information you learn throughout the day, which (if you couldn’t tell) is pretty useful when it comes to studying. Not to mention that getting enough sleep helps you to concentrate better and keep your focus on the task at hand.

Alright, now I know that sleep is important, but why do I have to have a sleep schedule?

Out of all of the things I tested, the thing that most improved my sleep quality was having a consistent sleep schedule. Going to bed and waking up at the same time trains your body to remember when it’s time for sleep.

Having a different schedule for school days and weekend days causes your body to be confused making it harder to fall asleep. It would be best if you make your sleep schedule while you are still on vacation and slowly start to get used to it.

By the time school starts you will be so good at sleeping that you can do it with your eyes closed.

Do stupid things now before school starts

While you don’t have to go to school there are plenty of things you can do. You can:

• Watch television the whole day
• Scroll on social media, so you don’t have to think about anything else
• Watch 24 episodes of an anime, because why not? (which might be something I have done before)
• Or any other pointless time-wasting activity you won’t be able to do once school starts

While these things (except for watching anime) are pointless time-wasting activities, everyone does them from time to time. If you want to spend the whole time watching TV or scrolling on social media do it while on vacation.

Doing so during the school season is just an unnecessary distraction (and you know it’s true). Binging an anime or some other show is even worse since you probably (just a wild guess) don’t have enough self-control to stop yourself.

If you want to binge a whole show, do it while on vacation.

What to when the school starts

Make a study schedule and stick to it

Just as important as a good sleep schedule, a good study schedule is essential for achieving your goals. And, just like with sleep, I would recommend that you study at the same time every day whenever possible.

Studying every day is a great way to build consistency, which will be of great help to you when you need to study extra hard for important exams.

Where do I even begin when making a study schedule?

The hardest part about making a good study schedule is the beginning. Usually, students follow the schedule they make for a short period while feeling motivated. But, once that motivation is gone, they quickly abandon the schedule they made and study when they need to (of course, according to their own judgment).

To make sure you don’t fall into this trap you need to set lower expectations when you first make a schedule. You can start with 15-30 minutes a day since you won’t get bombarded with tests after you just come back to school (or, at least I hope you don’t).

When you get used to this, slowly increase the time you study. This makes it much easier to adapt to your new schedule and makes it easier to build a habit of studying daily. If you follow your schedule you should have no problems getting ready for your test.

And if a particularly difficult test comes up, it will be much easier to study a few extra hours if you have been studying every day. If you want to learn more about how to build a habit of studying every day, click here.

Time limit yourself

You already know what I am talking about, don’t you?

That’s right, we are talking about those time-wasting activities again (here is a high-five for the correct answer). The ideal solution to this problem would be to stop using your phone and television altogether, but I don’t expect you to do that.

Instead, you can put a time limit on those things so you can’t use them more than necessary (I don’t even need to check to know that there is an app that does this for you, so if you are interested try to find something).

Activities like scrolling on social media and surfing the internet are easy to get lost into and spend countless hours on while achieving nothing significant. Time-limiting these activities will help you to free up extra time for better things to do (like studying).

Of course, there are still useful things that you can do while surfing the internet, just make sure that it doesn’t get out of control. One of those useful activities would be reading this blog and gaining more knowledge on how to study better (nothing wrong with a bit of shameless self-promotion).

Get curious

Your whole life doesn’t have to revolve around school. Experiment with other things and see what happens. I recommend making a list of things you want to do. When you have some spare time, take a look at your list and try something.

What do you put on the list?

Literally, anything that might seem fun to you. Here are some of the options to get your inspiration going:

• safe some money and go to a place you always wanted to visit
• try a new sport
• learn more about something you always had an interest in
• write a short book
• go on a hunt for three-headed aliens that come in a ship the size of a peanut and can change their size at will (I am sure something like this exists somewhere, you just have to keep looking for it)

As you can see literally anything can go on the list, as long as you think it will be fun. The key phrase being “think it will be fun”. If you try something and don’t find it fun you can always remove it. So, if you are undecided on whether to try something, I say go for it and see what happens.

Stay motivated

I would say that consistency is more important than motivation. Therefore you should always strive to be consistent rather than rely on motivation. However, there are times when you just don’t want to study and have no idea how to get motivated to do so.

At times like these, knowing how to motivate yourself can be of great help to you. Naturally having intrinsic motivation would be the best. Being able to study just because you find joy in studying or you find material interesting is the easiest way to feel motivated.

While I always encourage others to try and find interest in the material, I also acknowledge that to some students the material is not that interesting (all those history lessons that I had to listen to are coming back to me).

So, instead of solely relying on intrinsic motivation you can try identified motivation. The first thing you need is a list of your goals (which you should have by now). Next to every goal, write the reason why you are trying to achieve that goal, and why it’s important to you.

Write as much as you can. After you are finished put that paper in an easily accessible place. Whenever you don’t feel like studying take a look at that peace of paper. Reading the reasons why you are studying what you are studying should be enough to get you motivated to start studying.

To learn more about how to motivate yourself to study, click here.

Final thoughts

Many students fear that the upcoming year will be much harder than the previous one. Because they are scared that they won’t be able to meet their expectation and get the results they want. And to that, all I have to say is:

There are much worse things to come (I wish I could say I was joking).

On a serious note, the upcoming year is probably going to be harder. But you are probably not performing at your full capacity as well. If you want to learn more efficiently you should learn how to use active recall and spaced repetition (which you can do here).

If you master these two techniques you should have no problems when studying for your exams (of course you still need to study for them). Learning efficiently will increase the free time you get to enjoy your school year to the fullest.

Make sure to remember that – enjoy your school year to the fullest.