Alexandra Patel
Hello, and welcome to the Wyrd Learning Podcast with myself, Alex Patel and my co host Tracy Dix. Today's episode is called Bish, Bash, Bosh. How to get it done? We'll be talking about time management, and how to plan around essays. So you get them in on the deadline. Let's make a start. It's pretty easy. Why is it so hard to discuss, learn or teach time management? Any thoughts?
Tracy Dix
I think first of all, it's very difficult to kind of pitch it as a subject. Because time management is that useless appendage? Like an appendix? You know, it's kind of there, you need to think about it, but it's pretty annoying. And I think the only time that anyone wants to think about time management is when it's not working very well for them. You know, it's not like it's not like this is how to get first for your essay, or this is how to meet deadlines. Well, actually is, well, maybe I've just hit on something, maybe that's how we should be talking about time and Exactly, exactly.
Alexandra Patel
It's not about you know, we all think you should learn to, you know, manage your time really effectively. Yeah, and what you're using it for,
Tracy Dix
What is managing your time effectively, anyway, because there are lots of different techniques and different things resonate differently with people. So we were having a little catch up on this topic before recording. And both of us basically kind of said that a lot of the traditional time management techniques are not really anything that we stick to our they, Alex,
Alexandra Patel
I beg your pardon, Tracy, we all know I enjoy a Gantt chart as much as anyone else.
Tracy Dix
Okay, well, I know you enjoy it, I know you've never Gantt chart, but the thing is, you make it your own. And that's what it's about. You don't kind of adhere rigidly to any type of advice, you kind of think about it a little bit and adapt it to your own style, don't you?
Alexandra Patel
Yeah. So I don't know about you. But I've spent a lot of time trying to teach time management, you know, lecturer at the University I work for would say, Oh, can you come in and do a session on this. And as soon as you kind of start talking about time management, people just switch off and don't want to know. But like you say, if it's really important, it's what helps you manage large projects, and get to the end. So you know, spread your timeouts evenly over everything, you've not just focused on one particular area, then panicked, press prints, or submit, you've been able to carefully work out what needs your attention and divide up your time accordingly. So I did want to ask you, what situations have you been in? Where you may have had a time management crisis?
Tracy Dix
Okay, so as a student, I think it's kind of what you make of it, really. But okay, I think what many students might consider a time management crisis, there was one time I wrote three assignments overnight. So one of them. Yeah, I mean, and I really got into the flow with those three assignments. And I ended up doing quite well in them. I think I might have gotten at first or high to one 2000. It was a 2000 word essay, I believe on Dombey, and son, which is a Dickens novel. But so I kind of had a couple of workarounds, I suppose, because I studied English literature, and one of my modules was on creative writing. And you could choose, you know, well, I think all good modules should offer a selection of what kind of assignment you would prefer to write based on what you might excel in. So you have a choice of, you know, would you like to write a piece of prose or a poem or whatever else, maybe a dramatic piece, say? Anyway, on this occasion, I chose a poem, and I had a 2000 word assignment, and I had something else, I can't remember what it was. Now, it could have been a 3000 word assignment, actually. Now I have to say that the research for all my assignments had already been done. And the planning, I just did the writing up. And not even all the writing up overnight, but I didn't sleep. And so it was really a case of like, write it, and I probably submitted it early as well, because I hadn't slept and then kind of was in this heightened state of I don't know what, but I couldn't sleep in the day either because of all the adrenaline. So I wouldn't say it was my finest moment. I certainly wouldn't recommend that anyone emulates what I did. But it is what it is. And I got through it. So okay, I was going to talk about the poem. That's what I chose, basically, because a poem doesn't really have very many fixed rules. I mean, they don't have to rhyme. They don't have to be a specific length. They're very creative piece. So I can't remember if I've ever talked about this on the podcast, but I wrote a poem that was in the shape of a pomegranate. And it was called, Shall I compare thee to a pomegranate? And I think I got a thirst for it because it was so wildly creative. Isn't that good? Alex? Weldon, you know, because I think many students associate poetry with something that has to rhyme. And so they get stressed about it and they reject it. But I kind of, you know, our, we used to Northen anthology of poetry. That was our main textbook when I was a student. And it had a whole variety of things, you know, like E. Cummings, whose first is like two lines long. I mean, I think it would have been quite courageous to submit a poem that was two lines long for an assignment. So I don't I didn't quite have that kind of bottle. But I wrote a poem, I wrote a poem in the shape of a pomegranate. And,
Alexandra Patel
and that's a well known kind of approach, isn't it to do with the shape?
Tracy Dix
Yes. And I did. So I did lecture on that team module later on. But unfortunately, I can't tell you what it's called. If you write a poem in shape,
Alexandra Patel
No, me neither. But you could say word art, but I don't think it is. Well, I know it isn't.
Tracy Dix
I think word is something that that's come later, like clouds, and you know, the digital generation and stuff.
Alexandra Patel
So I was gonna say, is this an example of you working smarter? Not harder? I think I made a good choice that paid off in the end,
Tracy Dix
I think, yeah, so I think choosing and a type of assignment that I knew I could excel in was an example of working smarter, not harder. And I'm, so I'm naturally more of a night person anyway. So I wouldn't, you know, so working overnight, would kind of have suited me better than working in a day when there are lots of distractions, and you know, you have to worry about food and stuff like that. Whereas I don't know what it is about overnight. So I was probably working a good eight hours. But you don't worry about meals somehow. Because psychologically, it's not mealtime so you don't have those distractions. And you just run with it. I might have had a few coffees or tea or whatever. I never quite made it to Pro Plus, which some of my classmates were on. I don't recommend I don't I'm not really into tablets and stuff if you know. Yeah, maybe the parents, fortunately, the odd paracetamol. It's about as far as I go, generally. I like my natural remedies, manuka honey, that kind of thing. Yeah, so I probably had a few cups of tea, and some biscuits and stuff. But you know, I didn't have to worry about cooking meals. And so I had that very long stretch of uninterrupted time, plus the pressure off the deadline to really focus my attention. But as I said, that was the only time I did that. I wrote that many assignments overnight. I did sometimes push deadlines, you know, late, like two or 3am. And you know, writing a PhD, you kinda you do do that. It's, I think it is part of the process for many people. But again, it depends. Some people are naturally morning people and others aren't. So some
Alexandra Patel
people are organized.
Tracy Dix
We are just organized differently, Alex, I don't know what you're talking about. Okay.
Alexandra Patel
Right. So I've got two examples, one I've mentioned before, but it's still very, very relevant. And that's the time management or the planning around exams, because obviously, you know, there were 70 percents of a module or something along those lines really important. And somehow I would always mess up the revision planning, you know, I'd sit there and do my revision plan, would I stick to it? Not even slightly, you know, I'd always be behind. And I would focus on the first exam and think, oh, I can catch up afterwards for the second and the third. And you know, pulling all night studying cramming sessions just doesn't work. You know, I went in and guess I kind of totally panicked and wasn't able to write anything down apart from couple of sentences and had to just leave the exam early. And yeah, failed. That's, but it was okay. In the end, it worked out. But effective time management would have had me and also effective studying techniques as well, because it's not just the time management. But starting early, doing a small amount each week, and sharing that equally between different modules would have been a much more useful and productive way. But it requires kind of sitting down and thinking, I need to do this from the start, you know, I know I've got these essays as well. I've got this other work to do. But I want to build my preparation for exams in quite early on, and just do a little bit every day.
Tracy Dix
So I've got two questions for you coming out of what you've just said. The first is, how did things work out in the end? And the second question is, but so I completely take your point of consistency and trying to do a little bit every day. But what would you say to a student who comes and tells you that they can't keep on top of their reading? You know, because they have weekly reading, and on top of that, they have assignments to prepare for as well. And it's really overwhelming. So I, I see this quite typically. So particularly for law students, I agree, you know, who have to, or perhaps think they have to memorize a lot of cases. And also for students in the sciences, I think, who have exams to pass and you know, need to kind of build the basic foundational knowledge.
Alexandra Patel
Yep, yep. Okay. So first question, things worked out for me, because at that particular level, I'm not sure if it was second year or third year, but they did compensation. So because I've done well, in my other modules, or you know, relatively well, they were able to say, Okay, this was like a one off will compensate the mark taken out for a job, something like that. But it did mean that I then had no chance of getting a first for my degree, which, you know, is quite sad, you know, what would I say to students who are struggling to keep on top of reading and note making? I would say, let's make this authentic and applied. So what are you trying to do, you're trying to apply this knowledge, you're not just trying to memorize it. So get yourself a set of exam questions or the types of questions that might come up in your discipline. So in law, it might be some examples of, you know, a case that you've been asked to look into and work out which laws apply to it, which what I would do is say, Okay, I'm going to learn how to answer the types of questions that come up. And inevitably, it will mean that you have to go in and look at certain case, law, or whatever things keep coming up. And you will see, you know, commonalities, there'll be certain ones that do keep coming up. And those are the ones which will stick in your mind more, and then you'll be ready for your exams. Yeah, so
Tracy Dix
I think the key is to think about the kinds of themes that come up, like what are the main debates? So that's, I can't remember the names now. But there is a case of the conjoined twins, is it Josie and Mary or something where basically, one twin has a higher chance of survival? And, but by separating them, the weaker one would die, basically. And so there was an ethical debate around that. So that's a very well known case that is kind of discussed very often. So I think it is sometimes about, you know, thinking what, so what is the discussion? What's the opportunity for discussion here? And what case or cases do you feel best kind of exemplified? The debates surrounding those issues?
Alexandra Patel
Yeah. And I would say, to do the same thing for other subjects. So you know, I used to sit and think I've got to condense my notes into little cards or, you know, read through them. But I wouldn't do any of that. Now, I would get a load of questions and go through my notes, go through the textbooks and come up with the best answers, I could pull those questions. And just make sure those questions cover all aspects of the course. And you're sorted, and you're practicing exam technique at the same time.
Tracy Dix
So I often come up against some resistance from students about adopting this approach of using sample questions for revision. And I think so I think I can empathize with that because as a student, so when I was at university, I had one exam, I didn't do particularly well for it. And my mom was really upset because her thinking was you had one exam? Could you not have done better than two two for it? And I'll say, well, the whole point of choosing the course I did was because I'm not good at exams. I mean, now obviously, okay, so the reason I was no good at exams back then was because I had the same resistance. And I felt, you know, like, how can I possibly do all this? How can I possibly, you know, answer questions when I don't have the knowledge yet. Yep. Yep. So Alex, how would you
Alexandra Patel
open it up? That's the approach and look with the exam question and use your notes, your textbooks whatever resources you need to answer it, and that is your revision. So instead of rewriting notes, you are writing answers to the types of questions that will come up.
Tracy Dix
Absolutely. And oh, Open Book exams have become the norm now, haven't they? Yeah, for a little bit anyway. Well, so Okay, so with students I have spoken to, I would say, I think every single one has an open book exam. Now. They are timed. Yeah. So I mean, that's not every single student, but I'd say as a sample, it's pretty, pretty accurate, I guess. Yeah. So so the time for so many hours, and they have to formulate a response in that time, but they have access to all the resources. And I really support that, because I think memorization is kind of a waste. And, you know, like, for example, when I go to the GP, you know, and you have you list a few symptoms, they take out their little book, and they, you know, they reference things, they don't have everything in their memory.
Alexandra Patel
And why should they absolutely fine, I would be much more comforted by doctors who are referring to things instead of, you know, trying to recall things. And actually, if you're thinking about mental processes, so cognitive processes, which, in other words means how people think, recall, and remembering a very basic, you know, we much prefer to think of things like analysis, evaluation creation application, as being better higher order skills.
Tracy Dix
So there you go. That is Alex's hard evidence that the method we're recommending is much more beneficial than trying to memorize, I think, yeah, there is there is proven evidence that our recall, our ability to recall is actually not that accurate.
Alexandra Patel
That too, yeah, yeah.
Tracy Dix
Yeah, so and that's the thing. So if you if you start with a question as your basis, rather than kind of aiming to memorize things that are in your textbooks or in your compulsory reading, then the way that you absorb that information is going to be very different, isn't it because you are going to be collating information in a way that's a lot more purposeful, and is aimed at application rather than memorizing facts. So it's a much more flexible approach, very dynamic, very flexible, you're interacting with the information that you're given, rather than just kind of glazing over because you're trying to memorize it. And there is no, there's no goal. There is, you know, that's nothing that you're trying to achieve. But it is, it is a far more active approach, then, well, and also, you know, I believe that we, as human beings are at our most passive when we're watching TV. So just kind of translating that knowledge or that experience, if you're sitting in front of a textbook, or reading off a screen or whatever, with no kind of aim in mind. Like, I think that would be as passive as watching TV. What do you think, Alex? With your neuroscience background?
Alexandra Patel
Yes, yes. Um, so trying to draw on the old neuroscience?
Tracy Dix
That can be painful later. And to put you on the spot today?
Alexandra Patel
Yeah, yeah. So as far as I recall, hahaha, different areas of the brain are involved in kind of short term and long term memory. I'm thinking the hippocampus here, just to sound awesome. But the and then you of course, you have specific areas that are involved in reading, so you've got the optic lobe at the back. And then if you're converting it into, well, that's the thing, actually, if you're just reading, what are you converting it into, you're not necessarily converting it into anything or, you know, you might just be running it into the short term memory, and then it's gone, just drifted off into the distance. When you're thinking about things deeply, it means you're involving your frontal cortex, your prefrontal lobe. So there are a lot more connections going on there. And I imagine that means it's more likely to be connected to different modalities, and to get it really into your long term memory, which is essentially what we want, isn't it?
Tracy Dix
So while you were describing that, you know, reading passively, I had in my mind, like an image of, I don't know, like alcohol, you know, when you pour something like a substance that evaporates straightaway, so you pour it in for a moment, it's liquid, and then it just evaporates. I kind of had that in my mind as well. But also, I think, in terms of the kind of near popular neuroscience, that's what I read, as opposed to the very hard sciency stuff that Alex is familiar with, we need the human brain needs to go over information several times in order to actually absorb and process it. So in order to like assimilate it into that long term memory like software sample women are learning new things, or when we're being shown things, we need to be shown things several times before we actually remember. And that's a very natural part of the process, isn't it? Yes, kind of, you're not gonna tell me now that I just have a terrible memory. And it's just me, I
Alexandra Patel
know I have a terrible memory. But you remember, I was saying to you the other day that if somebody's telling me how to do something on the computer, or in whatever situation used to be in a lab, or with test tubes, and whatever, then I always used to make notes. And it may have stuck with me more because of the note making. However, it also means I could obviously when I had to run through it myself, I have my notes there. But it would mean that I would only need to be shown something once in order to learn it.
Tracy Dix
But it could also be because you've processed it twice, because you've heard it. If and then you've kind of interpreted it, and you've written it down. Yeah, yeah. So you've processed it a few times. Yeah. And apparently, okay, so I heard this from somewhere, and perhaps you can confirm it, or we can confirm it later on. When you write something down, it's 41% more likely to materialize.
Alexandra Patel
Sorry. 41%, come from straight away my critical analysis, spine tingling.
Tracy Dix
I thought you would say that I heard it on another podcast. But you know, I'm sure it's something we can look up.
Alexandra Patel
Yeah, yeah. Well, if it's a very specific percentage, it means it could only possibly have come from one research paper. And you'd kind of want more than one research paper.
Tracy Dix
Yeah. So you know, in terms of evaluating sources, that's a little tip for you, isn't it ad
Alexandra Patel
specialists have very accurate numbers? Yes. So very accurate numbers tied to very kind of vague statements.
Tracy Dix
But I think what you said is quite an interesting offers quite an interesting perspective on the idea of, you know, being specific when it comes to academic writing, and when you need to be a little bit tentative. So when do you need to kind of challenge the information that you're reading? You know, and all the scientific evidence and how something has been proven? And? And when do you have to be quite specific? Because I think students sometimes struggle a little bit with that some students will get feedback like, Oh, this is very overgeneralize, or this is a sweeping statement. But you know, when you're making certain certain statements, particularly in an introduction, I guess, they probably feel like, you know, because they know that that certain exceptions, but they are trends, it's difficult for them to kind of encapsulate all of that in a statement. And there are ways around it, obviously. But I think that is something that's quite a real struggle for many students.
Alexandra Patel
I guess. If you're looking at your own research, then you would firstly talk about it in the past tense, you know, this experiment experiments demonstrated that, and you can be quite specific, you know, and you can be quite, what's the word adamant? No, I always assertive assertive, yes, we'll go with that, that's, you know, you've interpreted it correctly. And that is what this experiment means, then you have to be specific in terms of what it means. So when I was doing research on tickling locusts, so that was tickling the base of their wing with a paintbrush and recording how their hind leg and the foot at the end of the hind leg would come up and scratch that point on the wing. So you know, I would have this experiment, take averages and all sorts of repetition, that kind of thing. And then I would draw a conclusion from it. But then ultimately, I would want to then generalize to some extent. So that's the point where my language would change to be in the present tense, and it would become a lot more tentative. And it would also have to acknowledge the limitations. So it might be that whilst we see in locusts that they can accurately scratch to different parts of their wing, and this adapts as they increase in size, this cannot be applied directly to humans because they have very different nervous systems. It does indicates that even simple nervous systems are able to calculate trajectories and pathways of movement off the top of my head,
Tracy Dix
a beautiful example Alex.
Alexandra Patel
It was hard work.
Tracy Dix
But it is so I Academic Writing is quite hard work. And it does take practice, but you do get better. So that was beautiful. So I guess. So let's break it down a little bit. So saying that humans have very different nervous systems from locus is being specific about exactly what it is that's different. Everywhere else. For example, if you were to say humans are not locust, I mean, okay, so that would be a bit of a moment. But your marker would probably say something like, in what way? You know, more detail required? Yes, exactly. Yeah. So that is when the specificity comes in. But also, you were very specific about exactly what the limitations were of your study. So your study proves certain things. I can't replicate what you just said, Alex, because I have in one ear and out the other. This locus tickling? Yeah, so you don't just say that there are limitations, you have to be specific about exactly what limitations you've identified.
Alexandra Patel
Yeah. And ideally, kind of explain what that means.
Tracy Dix
So just very quickly, actually, one thing that really intrigued me was because I remember you were saying something like, oh, the university is pulling research into locust. And my initial reaction was, okay. But when you explained how, why it's important by saying that one thing that is really important in terms of when it comes to academic writing is trying to kind of tie the research to, why should people care about this? And you know, that's really fundamental in terms of like being able to gain funding for it to fund research, because that's quite a difficult thing to achieve, isn't it? But if the funding organization literally goes, Okay, so you're researching locusts, and what they need to know, the so what don't they? Yeah, yeah, mate, like, why is it compelling? How does it benefit humanity? What change is it going to create in the world? Those sorts of ideas,
Alexandra Patel
and that's also something that students need to do in essays. So you're not trying to grab funding from your professors. But you are trying to grab their attention? Yes. So you want them to read your introduction and go? Intriguing. I didn't expect them to take this perspective or, and then read through it, you know, great argument gets the end. And then that's when you know, you say, and this conclusion means we can do something, you know, really well, real. But you know, something important, something interesting.
Tracy Dix
What's the what's the real world application? For it? Yeah,
Alexandra Patel
yeah. But don't go too crazy. You know, like world peace may be a bit beyond the scope of your essay.
Tracy Dix
Yeah. And the other thing I want to say as well is that a lot of journal articles don't actually do this, they don't actually kind of do the whole purpose thing. Because I saw, I met with a student who was doing something to do with kind of medicine and something technical, technical science, something like that. It was not a discipline I really, I was very familiar with and the project. So the project she was describing was about measuring lung capacity and babies. And so I kept asking, I was trying to probe her for, you know, why are you doing this? Like, what do you see as the benefits? Even if, you know, you don't know, for certain there should be some kind of speculation as to how, you know, what kind of outcomes is it going to have? Is it going to prevent, you know, is it going to perhaps enable you to identify babies who are perhaps more prone to things like asthma, for example, I don't know this for certain, which then, you know, it maybe helps people to then introduce certain measures,
Alexandra Patel
or events or treatments. So you were saying about the why babies might need
Tracy Dix
to have their lung capacity measured?
Alexandra Patel
Yep. Okay, so one example that's of that might be that I'm sure babies often, you know, need additional treatments for their lungs. So steroids can be given to help their lungs get ready for life in the real world, I guess. So that might be a way of determining what the next step of the treatment would be.
Tracy Dix
Yep. But it is important to kind of tie it to that practical next step. So so the student had been asked to kind of disseminate her research and her findings in the style of the British Medical Journal, and she was given, you know, a kind of sample article to sort of emulate I guess so this is what like a model article is supposed to look like. And we looked at it together and nowhere So I can't even remember what the research was about. But nowhere did it actually say what the purpose was. So it's quite common in academic right, in a published academic writing that they don't do this, but it is a good thing to do.
Alexandra Patel
Yeah, yeah. It's going to improve the impacts that any article has. Yeah. It's obviously benefits. Okay, so, so we go back to a bit of the old time management now, after our little digression,
Tracy Dix
it was quite a digression. But I like to think that that was very much in the in the vein of the working smart, and you know, little things that all tweaks to the way you work that can have a big impact in your grades. And in terms of like time saving. Yep, yep. Okay, so hopefully, everything we've discussed so far has been helpful to you. And if it has do tell your friends about this podcast so that it can reach more people, we can help more students to achieve their goals at university. But also we are holding brainstorms. So we'll brainstorm your essay question with you a couple of times a month. So do sign up to our mailing lists, so you can get news of when that's happening, and a link to join.
Alexandra Patel
And the other thing that we'd like to highlight is that we have our signature course, fast track to academic writing, which will basically scaffold you and give you all the tips and approaches you need to put together your essay from the researching and reading to the writing and the editing. And it will save you huge amounts of time and get you the grades that you want.
Tracy Dix
And don't forget analyzing your essay question, my favorite part.
Alexandra Patel
I think editing is mine.
Tracy Dix
Okay, we can sense that you can probably sense that if you go through the fast track to academic writing, you know what our favorite parts are? Okay, so shall we get on to some nice simple tips that, that our listeners?
Alexandra Patel
One One more question. Okay, what are the consequences of poor time management?
Tracy Dix
So I guess from a student perspective, it could be like for me, not sleeping overnight, potentially missing your deadlines. Now. So essay submission is, well, exam submission as well, is all automated these days. And if you don't, if you're not prepared sufficiently in advance, then there is a chance that the technology could glitch and your work isn't submitted on time. I did have an instance, an instance where this happened with a student. And they were marked with a zero automatically. And it sounds like it's going to take quite a lot of hassle to get that sorted out through the appeals process.
Alexandra Patel
Yep. So what you'd need to do, if that does happen to you, is submitted to the office and the module convener by email and say, Look, there's been an issue before the deadline. But yeah, if you give yourself you know, half an hour or whatever to make sure you can get it submitted, that is going to really help.
Tracy Dix
That's a really good idea as well, Alex, because I think the student basically tried to grapple with technology, she did contact the, you know, a personal tutor, or whoever, but didn't actually submit the assignment to them by email. And that would have been a good way.
Alexandra Patel
So although thing is missing it because then they have the evidence that it was complete at that point, and no further changes have been made.
Tracy Dix
That's true. Although with exams, is could do exams, or you're expected to sometimes rioter exams on a specific form or an interface that might not be easy
Alexandra Patel
to vary quite a lot. I think some universities have bought, you know, quite fancy exam, soft type software, which would do all that side of things. Others, I think, use their virtual learning environment. So it's might be answering text in Blackboard or Moodle, or one of the other types of virtual learning environment, whereas some possibly even go more old school where it's a Word document that gets submitted.
Tracy Dix
So it's worth kind of planning ahead. But you know, definitely the most important thing is allow about half an hour for submission and don't push things right up to the deadline. Because, you know, I mean, if you're feeling already stressed out because of your workload, it's not going to help if you have to go through an appeals process as well, on top of everything else. Yeah.
Alexandra Patel
So one of the consequences that I'd like to bring up is that sometimes students will just get to the point where they're incredibly overwhelmed. The deadline is right then and there. And because it's a high stakes deadline, they feel they've got no have the choice, but to cheat in some way. So it might be copying and pasting something off the internet. Or nowadays it can be using artificial intelligence to write an essay. And it might be that normally, they're very honest about their work, and really, you know, passionate and motivated about it. But that's in this particular situation, they have just become, you know, got stuck in a pit. And the only way they seem to get out of it is to just for this one and only time sheet. So that is something I think, you know, it can happen to almost anybody really. So that is one of the really scary consequences of really bad time management is that you could get stuck in this position.
Tracy Dix
I have a little story about that. One, not about me personally. But so when I went to university, I went with a friend from Singapore, who was a classmate of mine. And she was brilliant. She was a really good writer, and she scored 85% on one assignment, I remember, which was just like, incredible at the time, you know, everyone was just like, Wow, that's amazing. How did you do that? And I can't exactly tell, I don't even know if she graduated in the end. So she wasn't at our graduation. And I'm not sure if she might have not passed or perhaps got the tu tu. And it was because of plagiarism. So I hear, which is a real shame. And it just goes to show that even the kind of brightest and most brilliant students, you know, if you don't manage your time properly, you can end up doing way below what's expected of you.
Alexandra Patel
Yeah, being really desperate. Yeah. So I think it's probably about time that we solved all your problems with some of our wonderful bespoke advice.
Tracy Dix
Or maybe it starts guide you to solve your problem. I
Alexandra Patel
overselling it
Tracy Dix
in the way you best see fit. Yeah,
Alexandra Patel
well, we'll give you some approaches which work but again, modify them for your own, you know, lifestyle, the way you work, and your personality. Yep. Would you like to go first, Tracy?
Tracy Dix
Okay, yeah. So I would like to talk about tiny habits. So there is a book about called Tiny habits by BJ Fogg. And this is a really good example of something that didn't really need to be a book. But there were some very useful tips in it. So the main message is to break things down into such tiny manageable tasks that there is no barrier to us starting on it in the first place. So don't set aside a whole day to studying or to just preparing for your exam, be really specific about what the outcome is that you want from each task, if all you can envisage is a day stretching endlessly ahead of you when you just have to revise but with no goal. So we talked about, about applying about looking at exam questions and applying knowledge. So that helps you to define those goals. Otherwise, you know, you're going to end up with the cleanest house or flat or room on the planet. And you know, you'd be very well connected to everyone on your social media, but you would probably have nothing to show for it at the end of the day. And chances are you might desperately work in the last half hour or hour, because you haven't done anything. And it's because you know, when you've got a long stretch of time ahead of you, it's very difficult to imagine or envisage what is going to come out of it. And so that's why being specific really helps. This kind of goes into another tip, which is to write lists. And now there's nothing new about this. But again, in the spirit of breaking things down, there is something I learned. So this was from a podcast called Teaching little brains that I was very into at one point there lots of very helpful things on it. And she talked about Steve Harvey, who I believe is so comedian, and how he writes lists. And basically the goal is to break things down into 300 things, which is a huge list. So you can adapt this. If you're writing 1000 word essay, you're not going to have 3000 tasks leading up to it, but you know, perhaps 50. And the reason for this is you're breaking it down into the very tiny and the very manageable, very manageable, and very specific. So you know, in 20 minutes, you can analyze your essay question. In another 20 minutes, you can do concept mapping to brainstorm that essay question and what that topic really means in another 20 minutes, so you can run you can run a search on an academic database to find some resources around certain specific keywords. So those are just some examples of tiny tasks that you can be doing in about 20 minutes or less so that there is no barrier to you starting on it in the first place.
Alexandra Patel
Yeah, So some of you might have heard of the Pomodoro Technique, which is essentially saying the same thing. It's named after I think it's the Spanish for tomato, those little retro tomato egg timers that people used to have in kitchens. So the idea would be that you spend 25 minutes on a task, and then you have a break for five minutes, and then you move on. But again, the key thing there is that it's breaking your day into kind of chunks, breaking your tasks into manageable chunks. And it's not a case of you know, you think, Oh, well, I don't have enough time to start this, I need to good three hours before I can even think about sitting down to do a bit of revision, or to work on my essay, where they actually, you know, you can get bits done while you're making dinner almost or while you're on the bus. And every every little helps.
Tracy Dix
You can do research while you're on the bus, you can listen to a podcast. Or you can use a text to speech tool to have like, say a journal article being read out to you.
Alexandra Patel
Yes, yes.
Tracy Dix
Mm hmm. So something that also kind of links quite well to this idea of tiny tasks is a tip that I got from someone, a friend that I follow. Her name is Vicki, and she writes her task on post it notes. So for those of you who responded really well to having color coding and that sort of thing, you can even write some of the tasks that I mentioned on post it notes and put a little reward on the flip side of it. So when you finish that task, you can take it off your task board, your project board, or whatever it is that you use, and give yourself that reward that you've earned.
Alexandra Patel
Positive reinforcement for. It's true for any psychologists out there. Yeah. Okay. So what Tracy was talking about there is short term time management or micro time management. So you're talking about, you know, how you plan your day, how you break things up, and that might stretch out to across the entire week. And as she said, you know, making lists is one of the key things there. So one additional tip as well. So just to re emphasize what you're saying about making it achievable, it's also good to know when somebody has finished, so you don't end up kind of wasting more time. So try and be clear about what it is, the task is, and when do you know it's complete? And making sure you get that done within that block of 20 minutes, half an hour, or whatever you work into?
Tracy Dix
So can we take an example of conducting a search on an academic database? When would you say that is done?
Alexandra Patel
Yes, I did that earlier today, within a time limit, as you well know, follow us on tick tock for more information. Yeah, so I set myself a task for preparing to do some research to write a journal article this morning. So I gave myself an hour. So within that time, I spent 10 minutes looking for an appropriate journal. And once I found one, I got the information I needed about the format of academic writing, you know, how they want the paper to be written, essentially, I then did a concept map. So that was probably for about 20 minutes. And that was just working out, you know, which specific areas do I want to focus on for this, and it was ruling out other areas, because, you know, I need to make it focused. Otherwise, I'll be spending all my time, you know, just going down rabbit holes of academic research. And so for the next I think it was half an hour, I spent a very enjoyable half hour on Google Scholar, that is my go to, I'm afraid, evil, looking for appropriate research papers. And so I decided I wanted to have five relevant ones for one area, and a couple for another area. And so once I've done that, and my 30 minutes was up, I stopped. And so you know, that does feel a bit scary. It's like, what if I picked the wrong papers. But, you know, once I've read parts of these, because I'm not going to read the whole things, I'm going to go in and get the information I need. If there are gaps, I can then go into the research again, and look for additional papers to answer those questions. So it's really not that scary. So my mission is to write a research article in 10 hours.
Tracy Dix
Oh, do you want to talk about that challenge?
Alexandra Patel
So I've set it up on tick tock, it's basically to kind of demonstrate how achievable good quality academic writing is. So I'm writing an article for my own kind of professional development. But I thought, You know what, I'm going to use the techniques that we talked about in FastTrack to academic writing. To see if I can get It's done in a really quite quickly, but really good quality. Yeah. And you know, today's efforts went very, very well. And I may well be pulling my hair out at the end, and I may totally fail. But if you were to follow me or weird learning on Tiktok, you will see the stages of this process, and you'll see ideas for how you can make your work more effective and efficient. Even if I don't make it within the 10 hours, we will see.
Tracy Dix
I think the 10 hours is a realistic ballpark, isn't it? Because the thing is, I don't think anyone would write an essay in 10 hours on the piano in quotes on the truck. Yeah, that's what I mean. But if you're kind of spreading out your work, and you're managing different deadlines, then I'd say 10 hours for one assignment is probably quite realistic.
Alexandra Patel
Yep, yep. So I'm good doing one hour a day. And so that brings us on to another aspect of time management. And that's long term planning. So we can use this as an example, if I know I've got this set period of time, these 10 hours across maybe two weeks, I might take the weekends off, and I treat myself, then I can break that down, you know, how many hours can I afford to spend, looking for articles, and preparation for this writing. So I gave myself one hour, that's done that's over that has gone, that ship has sailed. So next step, I'll probably give myself two hours for reading these research papers. So what I'll be doing is looking through the titles, working out which ones and the abstracts as well, of course, which ones I think are going to be the key parts of my piece of writing, and working out what I want to get from those papers, what questions am I asking, and then I'll go in, find that information, take it out. And I'm hoping I can get that done in two hours in total, that's a challenge. That's a challenge. And then that, you know, break it down, give myself so many hours, maybe two hours for first draft, another hour for raising, you know, a certain number of hours, two hours for maybe editing, yeah, I'll have to actually map this out. Because I can't do it, I can't count to 10 very effectively. Which is quite sad, isn't it.
Tracy Dix
So something that you can do with a concept map, the time management is when you're undertaking the research. So you start off with the concept map. And the starting point is your own ideas, isn't it. But as you kind of uncover all this relevant research, you can start adding, for example, the author's names and what they discussed to your concept map, and kind of build up, like develop your argument a little bit. So that actually when you've developed the concept map a lot more fully. So this is going beyond the initial 20 minutes, and you're going to start having a really good idea of exactly what argument you want to make by the end of it. Yes. And so that means that the writing upstage is going to be a lot easier and a lot clearer, you know, when you embark on it, which helps to overcome the sense of writer's block, you know, because people say, Oh, I don't know how to start. And there are various tips for that, you know, some people will say, just sit down and write and see what comes, that can be okay, because you know, getting started is better than not getting started. But I think if you can gain that initial clarity by building on that concept map, so much the better, because you can see how all the different ideas kind of connect to each other, how they challenge each other and other things in between, like more nuanced arguments, which when it comes to writing your introduction, will help you very clearly define the scope of your argument, and discuss, you know, this is what, you know, my findings have shown, this is what this your essay is going to be about and what it's not going to be about. And in terms of the going further and writing the conclusion. You'd also be very clear on Well, what direction do we think this is headed? You know, where are we in the research field at the moment? And where could it go in future? And, you know, what are the current limitations that could be addressed? So, now, Alex, while you've been describing this process of your 10 hours of, you know, putting this article together, you've been kind of talking in quite a linear fashion of starting at the beginning. Whereas when we were kind of just brainstorming some ideas for this episode earlier, you mentioned deadlines, and starting from the deadline,
Alexandra Patel
and working back a timeline of these 10 hours. So I've already used this, an initial block here, so we'll ignore that. But that was for my the first hour was my understanding, like the concept map what I was researching what I needed to try and write and some Initial scoping out of papers. So you were saying, Tracy that usually I try and work backwards. So that does make a lot of sense as well. Let's start from the end. So I'll definitely want one our final kind of proofreading and checking references. I will want probably two hours editing a story, because that's our fundamental thing.
Tracy Dix
How long do you think your article is going to be?
Alexandra Patel
You don't want to know, both out 1500 words?
Tracy Dix
Oh, okay. So if you can write this in 10 hours, this is something that's going to be very valuable, it
Alexandra Patel
will be a miracle. Yes. So my reading, I guess it's gonna have to be three hours, two hours at the start there. And then I'm gonna go with an hour revisiting the concept map there. And then that's not bad, that's 123 hours on the first draft. So now I know when I get to the end of each of these points, I have to stop. Otherwise, it will not be achievable.
Tracy Dix
I think the other thing as well is for someone who is perhaps less well practiced in academic writing, you might want to allocate more time to the editing process, I think three hours for the first draft is quite realistic. But the devil is in the detail, isn't it? And the kind of reframing of those topic sentences can take time, especially if you're not very useful academic writing. So I'm just I'm just kind of offering a bit of a reframe, you know, just to think about
Alexandra Patel
your own kind of abilities. Really? Yeah. How long do you think you want to spend on each task?
Tracy Dix
Yeah. Because I mean, we don't want to do a thing like, you know, Jamie Oliver's 15 Minute Meals, where everything is prepped by his team beforehand. And all he has to do is throw it in a pan like that's not really fair.
Alexandra Patel
No, no. So message there is that the long term planning is important. So when you're thinking about, you know, the next month, the next two months, or perhaps the next semester, you can map out when your different deadlines are, when your reports are due, when you've got exams, things like that, you can also include important occasion. So for example, if it falls over Christmas, or you're going on holiday, or you've got other commitments, you can mark those in there. So that way, you know that you have to put a bit more work in beforehand, and a bit more work in after in order to skip that break. And then you can, you know, map out what you need to get done by what points in order to meet each deadline. Yep.
Tracy Dix
And the other thing I just sort of wanted to add to that a little bit was, it is important to factor in your social life as well, you know, because it's a really useful way of kind of breaking up your week and your days. But also, it gives you something to look forward to. So that can be like your little reward at the end of the day. You know, and avoiding that, that the many hours stretching endlessly ahead of you, where you're committed to like mugging for your exams, I don't think that's, that's not really working optimally. It's not a good kind of mental or emotional state to be in either. So it's good to have your activities and make sure you know, make sure you've got some social interaction, but also work in some movement into your day. I'm quite big on that. I don't move nearly enough. But, you know, make sure you go for a walk very often and think about tasks that you can do more dynamically. So we're talking about, you know, concept mapping or listening to something on the bus, but if you were to go for a walk, would you you know, perhaps listen to a podcast or an audio book while you're on your walk.
Alexandra Patel
Okay, so I think we should finish there, Tracy? Points. I'm sure we will put together a masterclass on we weren't good at time management, but it will be about time management, or you know, getting things done this boss, boss, this boss. Thank you for listening. We really appreciate you investing your time in following us and you know, finding out about our approaches and techniques.
Tracy Dix
Thank you for listening to the weird learning podcast with your host, Dr. Alex Patel and Dr. Tracy Dick's production team Patricia Marie Solis and Kim Arendt.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
